The Nation Newspaper

Category: Femi Orebe

  • The calm before the storm

    The calm before the storm

    An iniquitous Jonathan government is fighting a rolling, uneven war against every sector of the Nigerian economy which they reckon is not with them

    In its most recent opinion on Nigeria, The Times made a staggering  mistake by suggesting that  President Jonathan could , sooner than later, ‘wake up to find he has lost his country’, like he did the Chibok girls, thereby implying that our dear president has been sleeping on duty. Rather than being soporific, our president has never been more active, busy in the map room, overlooking, strategising and, of course, commanding his demolition squad; a squad so busy and efficient, it is multi tasking in Adamawa, Nasarawa is to come, Edo, recently demolished Ekiti and now awaiting Wike’s mother-of-all mayhem in Rivers State now that Shekarau has taken over those massive duties as Coordinating Minister of Education. Had the president given a quarter of the time he devotes to  vanquishing  the opposition to nation-building, neither  the ‘Protectors of Nigerian Prosperity’, nor its cousin, ‘The Transformation Ambassadors’, would have looked so funny, thinking Nigerians merely  laugh whenever their  meaningless adverts, which stand Nigerian realities on the head, pop up on television.  Nor would The Times have had the effrontery, to brand our president a bad news president. For instance, when these jesters claim, without a census, that more are with  President Jonathan than those against him, I hope to God they count among these Hallelujah chorus, the hundreds of Nigerians  who had become internal refugees in their own country, uprooted from their  homes as a result of the unprecedented insecurity  enveloping the country. I hope they count the families and relatives of those killed in mutual hatred in Plateau, the Northwest and other parts of North central as well as the living dead in those most unfortunate parts of President Jonathan’s country. Nor must these protectors exclude the millions of Nigerian youth who do not know where the next meal will come from in a rebased, huge economy of astounding growth  of  seven percent plus, but no jobs. I equally hope they counted on Jonathan’s side, parents of the Chibok girls who must have happily signed up to be counted. And as for their neighbours in that part of the country threatening to approach Ba Kii Moon, they had better be advised to sign up if they do not want the Jonathan train to leave them behind.

    Rather than be pre-occupied with such things as so highly recommend the likes of the Philippines President Aquino Jnr. as statesmen, our president had pro-actively gone ahead to have in place zonal commanders for his demolition squad and as 2015 approaches, there is a healthy competition between and amongst the various zones, represented by geo-political divisions. Indeed, so fierce is the competition that both the North Central and the Southwest zonal commands have completely overshadowed the rambunctious South-south zone under the lead of our former Co-coordinating Minister of Education who, very successfully, managed the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic, ASUP, strike which, to his credit, has now lasted for a year without the Jonathan government caving in.

    The demolition has also been all-embracing: financial/economic and through a judicious militarisation of enemy territory at critical times.  By these means,  an iniquitous Jonathan government is fighting a rolling, uneven war against every sector of the Nigerian economy which they reckon is not with them as if Nigeria is no longer practicing multi party democracy.  My way or the highway has overtaken every tenet of democratic governance and as long as there is money to be made, tonnes of it, both recruits and cheer leaders will be handy as well as those trying to escape the jaws of EFCC and imminent jail.  First, it was the federation account, deliberately and tactically mal-nourished by the duo of our most important female ministers. Monthly allocation to the states plummeted, by some account, by up to 40 percent, but pronto, friendly states were singled out and generously assisted, from the Ecology Fund to the tune of billions of naira. On the economic development level, they erect every conceivable obstacle on the way of a state like Rivers to access much needed development funds while in Lagos State they deviously ensured that the Ayobo-Ipaja Road could not be completed by asking the contractor to pay a stupidly humongous amount of money to the NNPC for pipe lines, whereas in a less inequitable environment, a government having such vital assets in an area would have facilitated that road’s completion. The result is that commuters, many of who are on the road to work as early as 5 am daily, are made to suffer excruciating traffic gridlock. As you read this, presidency agents and ‘agents provocateurs’ are actively at work in Adamawa where every conceivable subterfuge has been dredged up to oust a governor who has less than a year to go out of eight. In Edo State, birds of a feather are actively at work, stopping at nothing and under the unwavering protection of the police, to disrupt legislative duties in spite of court rulings. We await the reaction of this lawless lot to the most recent decision of the Appeal Court.  If our feelers are correct, the northern gang will soon be deployed on Nasarawa State just so we can all be ‘apes obey’.

    These machinations are obviously advancements on the old PDP rigging methods, especially under then President Obasanjo when they used to wait patiently for elections proper to fix them. These ones are smarter and more proactive.  For instance, why go into the dangerous business of ballot box snatching when you are awash with cash, there are rogue scientists worldwide and you can procure photo-cromic ink, even on an industrial scale at the drop of a hat?

    And of course, there is the army and the police to mercilessly deploy especially when you had been strategic enough to hand them over to a certain genre of individuals, men who could, and will do anything for power and money. Below then, is a summary of what President Jonathan did to Ekiti in the recent governorship election: the entire state was locked down for 48 hours with soldiers and police manning all the entry points? Armoured tanks, helicopters and other military hardware were moved to the state in astonishing numbers. The Inspector-General of Police sent in hi-tech security equipments including surveillance helicopters, armoured personnel carriers, mobile police men, even, dogs. For what? If President Jonathan did this in a governorship election, what will he not do during the presidential? Must he fight to the death? And to imagine that with their clever deployment of spurious science, they did not need a single police man more than were already available in the Ekiti State command. It was all, therefore, a make-belief but since we are no wizards in Ekiti – nor are we half as hungry as being egregiously made out on several for a waiting-to –survive-forever on an expired 2.5 kg bag of Thai rice – there was no way we could have known that the ballot paper had been tampered with and pre-programmed to activate allocated number of party emblems. Nor could the poor Youth Corps members used in carrying out the peripheral parts of this totally novel rigging method in Nigeria, have known they were being used, writing down the last three digits of certain ballot papers in each polling unit.

    Since there is no honour or moderation among thieves, INEC/PDP will again, like to repeat the Ekiti magic in the Osun election. My advice, therefore, to everybody who wants to vote APC, is to ensure he/she holds on to the ballot paper for at least 20 minutes after putting his imprint and wait to see if it will not  transfer to somewhere else, though there might be slight  modifications to that used in the Ekiti election. As happened when INEC quickly reversed itself over the PVC Readable machines for Ekiti election, I expect an agitated INEC/federal government would come out, Monday morning, telling us a voter can only spend three or so minutes. Voters must know that no soldier or policeman is empowered to stop them from voting. Please hold on to your ballot paper for at least 20 minutes.

    And should INEC continue with these outrageous rigging of elections, the American prediction for Nigeria, come 2015, may turn out a self-fulfilling prophesy. Let those who have ears, hear.

  • A peep into the Republic of the Philippines as Nigeria atrophies

    A peep into the Republic of the Philippines as Nigeria atrophies

    Aquino’s determination to lead the government and the nation towards the straight path has been the catalyst for unprecedented economic growth

    In spite of the garbage being daily spewed on Nigerians by the so-called ‘protectors of Nigeria’s prosperity’, especially the over fed foreigner commentators among them who are so enamoured with an over achieving President Goodluck Jonathan it’s a surprise they hadn’t loaned him to oversee their respective country’s affairs, most Nigerians remain perturbed, agonising over what has befallen their country. It is the same reason this column will ‘afghanistIce’ today to let Nigerians see what governance is  in  other, even less endowed,  countries  of the world in contradistinction to the verbiage that passes muster here as governance. I must, however, thank a dedicated reader of this column for this paradigm shift, away from Ekiti affairs which had been the focus of the column for a straight ten Sundays, trying to ensure our people make the correct political choice until we got overwhelmed by PDP’s electoral abracadabra. Writing from Ibadan, the gentleman, who studied and married from that country, said, inter alia: ‘Good day to you. I have been reading your write ups for years now and I commend your efforts to straighten our society. Thank you so much. Please and please, go and read extensively on one country –The Philippines. There is a crusade going on in that country now by President Benigno Aquino Jr from which we can learn as a country. Let our people know about this. Many old and new senators are being whisked to prison without bail. They are sent there for corruption and ‘chopping’ of public money. I studied in that country and married from there and I live in Ibadan.’

    That precisely was what gave me the urge to go read more about this island country in Southeast Asia situated in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of 7,107 islands that are categorised broadly under geographical divisions with the capital at Manila though its most populous city is Quezon City. Its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire, and close to the equator, makes the Philippines prone to earthquakes and typhoons, but that very fact also endows it with abundant natural resources and some of the world’s greatest biodiversity. The 15th President of the Republic of the Philippines, Benigno Simeon Aquino III, has come to stand for Filipinos’ reinvigorated passion to build a nation of justice, peace, and inclusive progress. Aquino, the only son of democracy icons Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino and President Corazon Aquino, has in different junctures throughout his life responded to the challenge of acting with and serving the Filipino people. In 1983, after the assassination of his father, he returned from exile to the country to help show the way for the EDSA People Power Revolution -the nonviolent and prayerful revolution by ordinary people -that toppled a dictatorship and restored Philippines democracy. In 1998, Aquino entered public service to make sure that the democracy his parents fought for would bring changes in people’s lives. He served as Representative of the 2nd District of Tarlac from 1998 to 2007. In May 2007, he joined the Philippines Senate, wherein he worked to bring about legislative initiatives anchored on the protection of human rights and honest and responsible governance.

    Rather than do that, our politicians would rather conjure on poor Nigerians, the ‘earthquakes and typhoons’ which nature brings to the shores of Philippines with earthshaking consequences.

    The most despondent days perhaps in Aquino’s life took place in 2009 when his mother died.  Her demise prompted mourning from all over the country.  But it awakened a remembrance of the values she stood for. It stirred up the people’s yearning for a leadership that is honest and compassionate, and a nation that trusts and works with its government. Immediately after her wake, people began to call on Aquino, urging him to run for presidency in the 2010 elections to continue his parents’ work. Signature drives and an outpouring of support through yellow ribbons and stickers went full blast, convincing him to run, not the multi-billion, foreign denominated advert campaigns we see around here. Moreover, candidates for president such as Senator Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, Pampanga Governor Eddie Panlilio, and Isabela Governor Grace Padaca all gave up their presidential aspirations to support Aquino. On September 9, 2009, the 40th day after his mother’s passing, he officially announced his candidacy.  At his inauguration on June 30, 2010, he declared: “I want to make democracy work not just for the rich and well connected but for everybody,” emphasising that he was in office to ‘serve and not to lord over the people. The mandate given to me was one of change. I accept your marching orders to transform our government from one that is self-serving to one that works for the welfare of the nation.’

    This, unfortunately, is what this unfortunate country has lacked, but now lacks more than at any point in our history. You will never, for instance, catch President Aquino protecting a minister under probe for the  misuse of public funds, claiming that  the agency of government constitutionally empowered to oversee  the agency’s affairs had invited her a ‘million’ times for questioning. President Aquino, like his Ugandan counterpart, would rather hang himself than pardon the scion of a former president who is known to have fleeced the country to the tune of over N4 Billion dollars all because he must contest and win election. The Republic of Philippines, obviously a third world country like Nigeria, has shown  by this, that you do not have to fight to the death to be president nor do you have to irredeemably mess up a country’s entire electoral system just so  you would become an Emperor. In the case of President Aquino Jr, even candidates of  the opposition parties withdrew for a man of honour, for a man they know will not be self-serving but  will, in his own words, ‘transform government from one that is self-serving, to one that works for the welfare of the nation’.

    Only this past week on CNN, Christiane Amanpour asked our dear Coordinating Minister of the Economy why a performing governor, one that is building infrastructure and catering to the welfare needs of the most at risk segment of society,  could be whimsically thrown out of office. The minister could only resort to braggadocio, rationalising what she knows not, claiming that because an election was seemingly peaceful, it was transparent even as the larger world knows that there are enough rogue scientists, once the price is right, who would use science to screw up the most apparently transparent election. After all, science makes no noise as we saw when Syria sent to their early graves, hundreds of the opposition via the nerve gas.

    The presidency of Benigno Aquino III has been marked by a hardy dedication to bringing about shared progress by doing things the right way. Aquino’s determination to lead the government and the nation towards the straight path has been the catalyst for unprecedented economic growth, which has trickled down to the margins of society through improved government services, reforms in the education system, and conditional cash transfers for the poor; an inspired campaign for good governance and justice as evidenced by the prosecution of corrupt government officials and the empowerment of the citizenry.

    “My hope is that when I leave office, everyone can say that we have travelled far on the right path, and that we are able to bequeath a better future to the next generation.”

    These are not the words Nigerians hear today as protagonists of 2015, without any consideration for our stolen girls or their parents, decided to mount the Jonathan re-election campaign preliminaries right on the same grounds as those poor women staying right there, rain or shine, to continue to draw world, and in particular, the Jonathan government’s attention, to the plight of the Chibok girls.  Amazing, how unfeeling politics could turn!

    As we march forward to an uncertain future in this country, everyone in public office, be they politicians or civil servants, even the many cheats that abound within the private sector, should know that if care is not taken, they could very well be victims of the same corrective measures President Benigno Simeon Aquino III is unerringly unfolding in the Philippines.

    A stitch in time, they say, saves nine.

  • Ekiti 2014: PDP demonic plans shall fail

    Ekiti 2014: PDP demonic plans shall fail

    Vote Fayose and turn this distinctively unique state into a plaything for not only President Jonathan and his Niger Delta boys but also the likes of Buruji Kashamu and Bode George

    For ten straight weeks on this column, I have done nothing else besides predicting, from what as a trained historian ,I know of its decade and a half stranglehold on Nigeria, what the PDP  would be up to in the run down to the Ekiti election which they, from Abuja to Otueke, see as the opening chapter of  President Goodluck Jonathan’s consuming 2015 ambition for which nothing is considered too sacrosanct  to give and that includes the very survival of Nigeria. I wrote about the role of the first lady in Fayose’s emergence, allegedly claiming  that he is the only one with the ‘craze’ to deal with a stubborn Ekiti people as well as the recruitment  of some ‘billionaire’ political jobbers both of  which accounted for the emergence of Fayose and Omisore as governorship candidates in Ekiti and Osun respectively. As a result of that imposition in Ekiti, 18 chieftains of the party, in an advertorial in THIS DAY of Wednesday June 11, 2014  disowned

    Fayose claiming that  with ‘his questionable antecedents, and for not possessing  the required temperament, disposition, and the capacity to deliver good government to Ekiti,  they cannot, in good conscience, work for him’.  Among them are Chief Ojo Falegan, Dr Bode Olowoporoku, Rt. Hon Kola Adefemi, Otunba Reuben Famuyibo, Ropo Adesanya, Chief Dapo Alibaloye, Sir Kayode Otitoju and Justice Edward Ojuolape (RTD)

    I interpreted the involvement of a Niger Delta militant, as coordinator of their  South West  security strategy, not only as a cheap sellout  of Yoruba people to a tiny Ijaw nation, but as the most direct evidence of their plan to import  Niger Delta  thugs.  Hundreds of such thugs were infiltrated into Ekiti on the occasion of the President’s visit on Saturday 7 June when he primarily came to commission the  war already  promised by his Vice.  Dozens  of them were  allegedly arrested by security operatives at Fayose’s Spotless Hotel  on June 10 as reported in the IROHIN ODUA edition of June 11, 2014.  On interrogation they claimed Fayose invited them for ‘strategic reasons’ as they were paraded with their  charms, arms and ammunition.  This is, of course, a mere tip of the iceberg, as the dangerous  Southwest PDP cabal, among them ministers, have promised to capture Ekiti. Here truly  must be the changed Fayose which Jonathan said he was presenting Ekiti  on Saturday, 7 June, and upon whose victory, which God forbid, he will now develop the state. Hogwash!

    President Jonathan on that day flagged off  another of his many wars as in  the  North East, Rivers, and  freshly,  Kano and  his Vice stayed behind to personally observe the commencement of  their  one-sided hostilities. Since it has become known that the likes of Yuguda were hankering after his job,  that  man of the permanent  overflowing babariga, would do just about anything to survive.

    Ekiti people did not have long to wait. With the intent to ‘shock and awe’, they started with the state governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, who was tear gassed and shot at, as they broke up a peaceful rally. But if they thought we can be intimidated then they don’t know the doughty Ekiti with a checkered history of confronting, and defeating foreign invaders. Fortunately, the governor showed that minion something of the Ekiti make-up on that day. The foreign legion was, appropriately, led by an  Ijaw police officer, one Gabriel  Selenkere,  the state MOPOL Commander,  who  was alleged to have served as Jonathan’s ADC when he was Deputy Governor in Bayelsa.  Apparently, the man  who most probably  does  not take orders from the state  Police Commissioner  had  impudently told the latter when confronted by him: who? Which governor? I know no governor when the Vice President is still around. I have orders from above’.  If I may ask of this impertinent man,  what federal project was his Vice President waiting behind to commission in Ekiti ? That, incidentally,  is what Nigeria has been turned to by these  cretins.

    But all  that is only the opening glee as there are worse lined up for election day in the state. As it happened in 2003 when a substantial part of Fayose’s votes  were allegedly  ferried in to Ekiti from  the amala empire in Ibadan; the reason Baba chose whatever contract in Ekiti suited him,  they intend to have police men and thugs escort stuffed ballot boxes into  the state on 21 June. Thugs are also primed to disrupt vote counting in APC strongholds. They will be under orders to  shoot into the air but if unsuccessful, to shoot directly at the people. They have  equally  recruited some mid level  rogue elements  within INEC who will ensure that voting materials are either not supplied at all, or brought in very late to polling centres where they  suspect the  APC candidate will win.

    The most sinister of this criminal gang’s plan which is already ongoing in all Yoruba states, however, is the devilish process of political recruitment to which former governor Segun Oni referred during the APC Mega Rally in Ado-Ekiti. Having been used to maximum effect in a particular Southwest state where millions were turned to literal political slaves ahead the 2011 general elections, it is now being extended into all the other states and as I write this, I have a copy of their  membership application form  which  the Lagos PDP is already distributing. I am reliably informed  Fayose is doing the same thing in Ekiti already. The phony empowerment organisation coyly  attracts recruits with promises of jobs and credits but the two most important  questions on the application form are: the applicants’ Voters card number, for purposes of  cloning ahead the 2015 elections, and his/her mother’s name, for ritual purposes.

    The initiation process, so beguilingly simple is extremely dangerous going by what a nearly entrapped woman confessed. According to her, she was ferried, with others in a luxury bus  to a certain town  ostensibly for empowerment.  Getting there, they were asked to fill a form in which it was compulsory for them to supply their mothers’ names and voter’s card number. Suspecting foul play she gave wrong names for both herself and her mother. Then  into an inner room where a Moslem cleric was waiting to administer oaths of allegiance. After this came a herbalist  for another oath.  From there  they were herded  to another town in the state  to swear to two powerful Yoruba Deities one of which is reputed to suck the  blood of those who backslide. Then comes the dark large space inside the building where they all stood on blood as a man in white emerged with a gourd of water for the final oath-taking. She said she pretended like drinking the water but did not.  Engr Oni has warned against going to seek help from people who will make you swear to oaths, naked in a coffin and  thereby succeed in making you their slave for life. Awo, the Avatar, must be squirming in his grave.

    If care is not taken, these questionable characters will turn most of  the youth in  Yoruba land to political zombies who they will use as bargaining chips for their political harlotry , especially in 2015 and even beyond.

    Obviously, they have, in their giddiness, forgotten that  there is God.  As a result, they cannot remember how God miraculously took Israelites out of Egypt or, nearer home, how God saved  the likes of  General Oladipo Diya  from certain death in Abacha’s gulag.  As the Lord liveth,  they will fall victims of their  own diabolical plans as Ekiti will never return to Egypt nor will it ever again be ruled by crooks. Ekiti, the land of honour and distinction requires  not ragamuffins but a  visionary leadership.  Vote Fayose and turn this distinctively unique state into a plaything for not only President Jonathan and his Niger Delta boys but also the likes of Buruji Kashamu and Bode George.

    God forbid.

    We must all therefore refuse to be intimidated  come  21 June 2014 whatever the enemy’s armada. For them, nothing is sacred or sacrosanct. They will therefore descend on us  in all their fury, believing we will vote with our legs. But as Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu never ceases to say, power is never served ala carte. We must stand our ground and shame these vampires. We must vote John Kayode Fayemi overwhelmingly to  victory.

  • Ekiti 2014: Of  sophists and despots

    Ekiti 2014: Of  sophists and despots

    Fayemi whose integrity has qualified him as the blue chip asset to our state needs another term

    Today, Phil Aragbada, a respected journalist and former newspaper editor, gives his perspectives on the Fayemi phenomenon and the impending governorship election in Ekiti. Happy reading.

    A “loving fear”, writes Gunder Anders, is not fear of the dangers that lie immediately ahead but for generations yet unborn. This is what underlies the current political landscape in Ekiti; a panoramic view of the interrelated transactions going on between the different entities across the land of honour which would, ultimately determine the future of the state. The future is a sacred trust held by the present generation. Yet, it is not an abstract concept. Rather, it is determined by the consequences of the decisions a people take in their separate but inclusive inter-relations.

    This poignantly brings to the fore, the forthcoming governorship election in Ekiti which has attracted gladiators at both intra and inter-party levels, thus reflecting the latitude, and, indeed, the beauty of democracy. Democracy, in spite of its attraction and elegance, however, has a major drawback in its systemic sifting process which, if care is not taken, can end up foisting on the people, clowns, spoilers, sophists, urchins, even, an outright criminal.

    The consolation is that politics, like religion, in spite of its tolerance of pretenders and the ignoramus, has a moderating fiat: the Judgement Day. In Matt. 13:24-30, Jesus told his disciples the story of the weeds and the wheat and declared, “let the wheat and weeds grow together until harvest, and at harvest time, I will tell the reapers: gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” Surely, the harvest day for political contest is Election Day. There is no doubt Ekiti people already know the weeds and the wheat and on 21, June 2014, Dr. Kayode Fayemi will be the anointed wheat of the people which the Bible calls the son of the Kingdom.

    Without a doubt, the massive transformation which has manifested in Ekiti since his emergence cannot but palpitate those who have in the past hindered Ekiti development as the natural reaction of evil-minded persons to any form of change, as is currently happening in the state, is to obstruct the path of change. This should be expected as the beneficiaries of the old order and the propagandists of obscene deceit are bound to be scared out of their wits. But man must live with change and those, who throughout history, have wrought changes on their environment despite daunting challenges and excruciating sacrifices have always turned out to be men of destiny.

    There is no doubt that Fayemi is a man who has a date with history. His path in life is strewn with multiple achievements that can only be ignored by incurable pessimists and pernicious scoffers who are incapable of being impressed by any form of success arising from brilliance, courage, resilience, integrity and measurable hard work.  Try not convincing these people as they are already trapped in their closet of pathological ignorance.

    Governor Fayemi, conscious of the groaning pain of the aged due to poverty, commenced a welfare package for senior citizens who have attained the age of sixty-five years. He also introduced free medical care for this category of Ekiti citizens. Despite paucity of funds, Fayemi, critically aware of the place of education in socio-economic development, ensured the complete renovation of all primary and secondary schools in the state, made education free to secondary school level and supplied students with free laptops to enable them connect, that early in life, with technological modernity. The tertiary institutions in Ekiti State were leveraged in the areas of infrastructure and funding to make them meet global standards. The immediate dividend of government’s investments in education is the ground-breaking 2012/2013 Bar results of Ekiti State university students who shone like a thousand stars at the last Law School exams.

    Fayemi’s empathy for the grassroots is palpable. His proximity to the rural dwellers is evinced by his novel State Assisted Community Projects Initiative acronym-ed SACPI in contradistinction to one of his opponent’s ‘Boli and guguru’ –roasted plantain and groundnut eating shenanigans, which has resulted in sundry socio-economic developments all over the state. The beauty of this project lies in the ability of the governor to personally meet community dwellers, feel their pulse and pains and get the state to assist in providing their needs. This evolutionary strategy has resulted in the provision of 1,906 SACPI socio-economic projects in 131 towns and communities, each executed, directly by the beneficiaries.

    Relying on verifiable records the Fayemi administration has not restricted its road revolution to state roads alone. Rather, it took upon itself the burden of rehabilitating some federal roads as a way of minimising the transportation problems in the state. About 1000 kilometres of federal, state and local government roads have been constructed / rehabilitated at the last count.

    For a state that has long suffered from the pangs of industrial aridity, Fayemi’s revitalisation of ailing companies like the Iree Burnt Bricks and the Road Materials Company (ROMACO) which also provides jobs surely deserves accolades and a guaranteed cheque of continuity. Of course, the impetus injected into the tourism sector through massive investments in various tourist centres, especially the now world-class Ikogosi Tourist Resort has tremendously expanded the economic base of the state. The youth volunteer scheme has also provided a source of livelihood and hope for thousands of young men and women. This is besides the YCAD programme which has witnessed a trained Medical Doctor veer into commercial agriculture as one of thousands of young men and women enlisted in the programme.

    The performance of this human Trojan has not gone unnoticed by international bodies as epitomised by the following:

    •The Human Development Report (2012) rated Ekiti State as the most conducive environment to live for long and healthy living with a life expectancy average of 55 years (10 years above the national average).

    •The state has the lowest infant and maternal mortality rate in Nigeria.

    •It has the lowest HIV and AIDS prevalence in the country.

    •It has the lowest mother-to-child transmission of HIV and AIDs in the country just as it boasts

    •The least out-of-school children (2%) in the country.

    As the saying goes, you do not change a winning team; indeed, no sane people will dissolve a winning team. Ekiti can, therefore, not be enticed with juvenile braggadocio, illiterate pomposity, and some funny appeal to phony populism. Fayemi whose integrity has qualified him as the blue chip asset to our state needs another term. A people who once experienced a culture of economic haemorrhage and ‘janjaweed’ rule in the hands of a despot and kleptomaniac will not dare attempt a repeat.

    A shining star in the firmament, Fayemi remains a moral tone of his generation. A man of credible pedigree, he would always stand on the side of the truth even at a cost to his political popularity. A typical example was his plea to the teachers a few years ago to pay their 27.5% professional allowance as soon as the state finances improve. This, he has since done, thus bringing to a happy end, the festering acrimony between the state NUT and the government. This has again confirmed him as a promise keeper, thus re-affirming the people’s sobriquet for him: O WI BEE, SE BEE.

     Ekiti must stand up and be counted. A vote for the APC is a vote for continuity. A vote for an assured future for our children; even for generations yet unborn. A vote for tranquility. A vote for economic leverage and, a vote for everything that is good for humankind. Come Saturday, 21 June, 2014, the good people of Ekiti must troop out, refuse to be intimidated by the federal police and army lock down and vote Kayode Fayemi overwhelmingly. Enemies of the people must be permanently shamed.

    Phil Aragbada, Governor’s Ajasin’s Special Assistant in the ‘70s, is a veteran journalist, newspaper editor and a retired Bank Executive.

  • Ekiti/Osun 2014: PDP to import Niger-Delta militants

    Ekiti/Osun 2014: PDP to import Niger-Delta militants

    The president should know that he can only ill afford another theatre of war, especially in a multi-ethnic geo-political zone like the Southwest

    If there is any doubt about the Peoples Democratic Party playing games with the nation’s security, the involvement of a Niger-Delta militant, one Okubo Robert, as coordinator at the meeting to finalise the security plans of the Southwest PDP for the forthcoming gubernatorial elections, with both Fayose and Omisore reportedly in attendance, should blow away such doubts. That the soldiers reported by newspapers, in a story that is yet to be refuted, as accompanying the militant could shoot at demonstrating students of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, is proof positive that President Jonathan will think nothing of deploying militants from his home base to shoot, maim or kill Yoruba people in the course of the coming elections in the region.  Also, the fact that Okubo Robert could order soldiers to shoot at defenceless students shows that a Boko Haram variant is taking root in that part of the country: otherwise why shoot at university students? The presidential assurances of peaceful elections delivered through his Special Adviser on Inter-party Affairs, Senator Ben Obi, at a meeting with the U.S Consular General, Jeffrey Hawkins, should therefore be taken with much more than a pinch of salt. Truth be told though, it is not that the president cannot be trusted as a person, but in the Southwest, he is at the mercy of absolute desperadoes who will do everything to misuse the sacred offices of both the Police Affairs Minister and that of the Minister of State for Defence as we have already seen serially. The president will therefore be thoroughly mistaken to trust these and other ‘do and die’ politicians that populate the Southwest PDP.

    It is obvious from the dangerous involvement of these reconstructed militants that there is a coincidence of interests between members of the power-mongering Southwest PDP caucus who have been shoved aside into political Siberia since 2010, and the president’s intent to do whatever it would take to guarantee his victory in 2015. Nigerians could not have forgotten so soon how Chief Bode George, as then President Obasanjo’s Man Friday, for instance, rode roughshod all over Yoruba land. That he has now been out-muscled by the ‘soldier-recruiting’ Kashamu means that should the PDP ever get a toe-hold in the region again, Yoruba land would be engulfed in a massive turf war reminiscent of what happens among the Italian Mafioso or the Mexican drug barons. To have a glimpse of what that would mean for the entire Yoruba land in terms of socio- economic development, is to take a retrospective look at the confusion and rudderlessness that have characterised PDP in Lagos State for over a decade and a half. This is one more reason Ekiti and Osun must vote right to ensure that Yoruba land never returns to the locust years.

    As already publicly attested to by former Ekiti State governor, Engr Segun Oni, those boasting to invest billions in the Ekiti election, and their infernal acolytes, are so desperate and dangerous that even if President Jonathan were not minded to personally approve of their evil designs, they could still go out, in his name, to infiltrate Niger-Delta militants into Yoruba land as we already saw in Ekiti with the influx of thugs coming in through Ondo State. The campaign of the Labour Party candidate, who is himself a PDP ally, is now not complete without an orgy of bloodletting. Being an accomplice, the Labour Party campaign has become a theatre of war, with thugs and fake police men shooting and maiming APC members as well as onlookers.  A victim of such at its Ikere rally is currently lying critically ill at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti. In contrast to that, the APC candidate has taken his campaign to the entire 131 towns

    and villages in the state without a single incident of thuggery; the only exception being when thugs in Fayose’s campaign office shot at a passing APC  campaign convoy and they had to be repulsed. PDP members and sympathisers in the Southwest may continue to bury their heads in the sand, living in denial, but they will wake up to reality the morning after, when some rag tag Niger-Delta militants would have devastated their homeland. It is then they will realise the futility of evil. Nwon ni nwon o fe o nilu o ni o fe da orin –You are not wanted in a community, yet you want to be a lead singer; who will sing along with you?  The Yoruba people remember, as if it were yesterday, the total ruination the PDP brought upon them in those seven years of the locust after President Obasanjo had successfully messed up the country’s entire electoral system and inflicted that clueless party on an unwilling people. It was a period of unmitigated blood, tears and ruin, as well as the total despoliation of our entire road infrastructure, with the Ile-Ife-Benin Express Road broken in two at Igbara-Oke, just as education reached its very nadir in the region. Insecurity, like we now have nationally, was the order of the day throughout Yoruba land, as epitomised by the activities of the late patron of amala politics in Oyo State.

    It is hoped, in the extant circumstances, that Yoruba elders, especially our revered royal fathers, as well as our other cultural icons, will draw the president’s attention to this looming danger for the Yoruba nation. It is far beyond partisan party politics or elections though these militants could also be used to ferry stuffed ballot papers into both Ekiti and Osun with unimaginable consequences. Nearly half a century back, and in similar circumstances, the incomparable Avatar, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, declared as follows: “The truth about the people of Western Region (Yoruba People) is that they are sufficiently enlightened and bold to refuse to be led by the nose by any person or group, however sophisticated such person or group may appear. They are slow to anger, robust in contentions, alert to their rights, and will fearlessly resist and combat evil, whenever and wherever they discern it, with all their might and resources.” One can only hope that our elders will see the larger picture and plead with the president to restrain these Delta Boys and warn their patrons, the PDP hawks and power mongers in the Southwest, and those others, who have declared the Ekiti and Osun elections as war zones, to sheathe their swords. The president should know that he can only ill afford another theatre of war, especially in a multi-ethnic geo-political zone like the Southwest  as that will tantamount to literally writing the country off the world map.

    It is apposite to mention in this regard, and as hinted here some two weeks ago, that the Oodua Foundation, a U.S-based think-tank of the Yoruba intelligentsia, has made good its promise to bring this looming danger in Yoruba land to world attention.  Led by its chair person, Professor Adeniran Adeboye, the group consisting of its patron, Senator (Prof) Banji Akintoye, Legal Counsel, Ayo Turton and the Liaison Officer, Wale Adelagunja, visited the United States Senate on the invitation of the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee on African Affairs, Senator Chris Coons, this past week almost the same time as the Consular General was giving his own warnings about the importance of the Ekiti/Osun elections. That certainly was no mere coincidence. Having thanked the U.S for her assistance towards securing the release of our stolen Chibok girls, the delegation tabled the all-pervading fear that the PDP-led federal government was determined to rig the forthcoming gubernatorial elections in Ekiti and Osun states and urged the U.S to impress on the Jonathan government, the inevitability of a free, fair and transparent election which the Senator promised to facilitate.

    Those who, having seen the futility of their chimerical ambitions and now want to play the role of ‘agent provocateurs’, in the manner of  kaka ki eku ma je eree a fi se awadanu , i.e wanting to work towards the Ekiti election being declared inconclusive by instructing their imported thugs to cause massive unrest, should be careful if they do not want to put a peoples’ cultural curse upon themselves.

  • Why Ekiti must reject a soul-less, clueless PDP (INEC must deploy card readers)

    Why Ekiti must reject a soul-less, clueless PDP (INEC must deploy card readers)

    President Jonathan, to have any respect worldwide, must immediately direct INEC to deploy the machines in the Ekiti and Osun elections

    The president, the father of the nation went azonto-dancing in Kano the other day even as blood was still flowing at Nyanya, in the federal capital territory, Abuja, where he, incidentally, resides. Limbs, burnt torsos, and, indeed, shredded bodies were still being packed for evacuation, in a once tantalisingly peaceful Jos, as the father of our nation, our very no.1 citizen, was being programmed to visit Ekiti to kick off what the clueless, soul-less party touts as the opening glee of  its rampaging, rigging machine to capture the Southwest to signpost their plan to once again inflict President Jonathan on the country even when U. S Senator McCain, not just hapless Nigerians, already  know that  Nigeria has been so  terribly ill-served with him as president.

    For the PDP to consummate its evil plans in Ekiti, all manner of rigging devices are being put in place but none is  as shameful as Professor Jega and his INEC’s  recant of its open declaration to deploy PVC card reading machines for both Ekiti and Osun Elections. As part of preparations for the 2015 election, INEC said it has concluded plans to deploy card readers to be used at the 2015 general election as well as in the governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states. Speaking at a knowledge sharing workshop with national publicity secretaries and deputy national publicity secretaries of political parties on the optimisation of the voter register, continuous voter registration and permanent voters’ cards (PVCs), Dr Ishmael Igbani, INEC’s ELECTION MONITORING AND OBSERVATION COMMITTEE (EMOC) Chairman, publicly announced that INEC would use card readers to interpret the PVCs at the elections. Said Igbani, ‘In line with its legal mandate, the Commission is currently in the process of printing the permanent voters’ cards for voters. The PVCs have embedded electronic chips containing the personal information and fingerprint details of the voters and will be used to identify and authenticate the voters at the polling unit on Election Day through the planned deployment of handheld card readers.’ But without the slightest regard for INEC’s integrity, his own apparently nebulous integrity and that of  Jega, the body, like a drunk, would within hours deny that it would use those machines which are the only means by which to read the embedded electronic chips to identify and authenticate voters.  These crafty INEC officials are yet to tell Nigerians how identification will now be done, but woe betides anybody caught presenting a cloned card to vote in Ekiti.  Without a doubt, PDP electoral investors in the Southwest who have successfully blackmailed President Jonathan by claiming the PDP had to win in Ekiti and Osun for him to have a ghost of a chance in 2015, must have again rattled the president who, in turn, must have directed INEC to recant. Or how do you explain an official of Dr Igbani’s status misrepresenting what must have been discussed severally at the topmost echelons of INEC unless he was not sober at the occasion?  President Jonathan, to have any respect worldwide, must immediately direct INEC to deploy the machines in the Ekiti and Osun elections. Any other thing will be disastrous for his presidency.

    News have since filtered in  as to how the PDP is buying up PVC’s from students and the poor as well as assembling former Adedibu thugs who will use the cloned cards to vote. The president  should know in advance that whoever is caught in Ekiti attempting to use cloned voters cards will not have the opportunity of reporting his/her fate to the police. Ekiti will never go back to those days of murders and attempted murders, of treasury looting, massive insecurity and outright mayhem.

    Former Ekiti State governor, Engr Segun Oni, has advised the good people of Ekiti never to have anything to do with the PDP but should, instead, vote for the respectable and performing incumbent, Dr. John Kayode Fayemi. Said Asiwaju Segun Oni, concerning the PDP, in a well-publicised newspaper interview: ‘I did everything I could do to give the party a chance to pick a candidate we can be proud of; one we can show to coming generations as a role model. When the PDP decided what its own options are, we had no alternative but to make up our mind to toe the path of honour. What we are doing is for the good of Ekiti, especially its name and integrity, both of which we may lose if we are not careful and for which coming generations will suffer. The position of a state governor is an exalted one in which the occupier must be a moral leader, a role model. If you have a governor you cannot sincerely pray in your heart that your children should emulate, then it means that the state has missed it. If you have a governor that could not be a role model for younger ones, then something is amiss. What is required is far more than legal qualifications or satisfying the letters of the constitution.  The position of governor is a higher ground and like Caesar’s wife, its occupier must be seen to be above board because you cannot make somebody governor that is deemed in the eyes of all reasonable persons to be devoid of morals. It is a slight on the office of a governor and on Ekiti people to have someone that the average man on the street perceives as a crook. You just cannot make just about anybody governor as doing so will mean creating problems for generations. Such a society will be planting trouble.

    “Secondly, I know the clique that is scheming to install one of its own as the PDP governor in Ekiti.  It is a very dangerous amalgam. It will be a grave mistake if we allow people, who have been declared wanted to answer for crimes all over the world, to become kings and kingmakers here in Ekiti. I want to sound this note of warning to all, that we should be vigilant and not allow a nursery bed of evil to germinate and mature in any part of the country. When that evil matures, the monster will threaten the peace and sanity of all, ala Boko Haram.”

    These are words of wisdom from a highly experienced statesman who knows the PDP and its dangerous ensemble only too well. Engr Oni was elected governor on the platform of the PDP and knows what evil the party is capable of perpetrating. Also, in its 15 years’ stranglehold over Nigeria, the PDP has nothing to point to as its contribution to Ekiti development. Federal roads in the state are worse than anywhere in the country and all we have for a federal secretariat are empty promises thus making Ekiti the only state without a federal secretariat in the country.  Were the PDP a decent party, its members will loathe coming to Ekiti to canvass for votes.

    Nigerians, irrespective of where they are located, must impress it on President Jonathan that our country needs a rebirth. Given the horrible names world leaders and leading newspapers have deployed in describing Nigeria in the wake of the abduction of about 250 girls in Borno State and our government’s incredible ineptitude in handling it, it is important that the president be prevailed upon to know that we already have enough bad news to add a post election crisis which, in the case of Ekiti State, God forbid, will be massive and riveting. The entire world has shown enough empathy towards President Jonathan, with many sending men and material that he should by no means, under whatever subterfuge, allow these dangerous businessmen to manipulate and mess him up since the buck stops at his table. God has been more than kind to Goodluck Jonathan. He should learn to count his blessings.

  • Ekiti and Osun: Nigeria’s make or mar elections

    Ekiti and Osun: Nigeria’s make or mar elections

    The fear today is that rigged elections in any part of the Yoruba homeland could provoke Yoruba reactions that could escalate into horribly wider conflicts beyond election protests

    It has been the unalterable position of this writer that the Jonathan presidency’s main pre occupation with the 2015 presidential election is  now how to vitiate the votes of key opposition geo-political zones, where elections hold at all, because as things stand today, the arithmetic, going by the population of each zone, is a major source of concern to it. These include the North West where there are now increased waves of reciprocal mass killings between groups that have, like forever, lived together in peace; the North East which, no thanks to years of internal misrule, has played into their hands by birthing the ferocious Boko Haram and, of course, the South west, which must reckon as the greatest obstacle to Jonathan’s 2015 ambitions. To take care of the  Southwest, not only has the presidency assembled the usual political outcasts in the region, it has successfully breached what was hitherto an impregnable regional elders’ redoubt with the result that men you could count on a few years back have completely sold out.

    The above scenario, especially in the Southwest,  has yielded circumstances so bewildering a very  respectable, completely apolitical Yoruba Diasporan Think Tank, the OODUA FOUNDATION, whose members are drawn from academics and the professions, and residing in various countries across the globe but with its international headquarters in the state of Delaware, United States of America,  has cried  out to draw attention to the likely, very  grave consequences of allowing history repeat itself in the region.  In its clarion call dated  4, May 2014 and titled DO NOT START VIOLENT CONFLICTS IN THE YORUBA SOUTHWEST OF NIGERIA, the group, in a powerful  1500-word statement that would have to be paraphrased  here for lack of space, declared as follows:

    “We are alarmed by the trends that we see in the politics of our homeland in Nigeria. We discern a truculent resoluteness to foment very tangled violence in our homeland in southwestern Nigeria in the months ahead. We Yoruba are an ancient civilisation; we had lived for over a thousand years in well-organised kingdoms and cities before the coming of European colonialism at the end of the 19th century. We command the cultural capability to change our rulers smoothly by conducting free and fair elections. In the decade before Nigeria’s independence, when the British overlords allowed all sections of Nigeria to elect their rulers, we ran free, fair and decent elections and became the pace-setter in the development of democratic politics in Nigeria. We became the first people in Africa to institute universal Free Education for our children, and the first people in Africa to make television available to our people. Our politicians are more than able to compete peacefully and responsibly at elections, to responsibly accept the outcomes of free and fair elections, and then to go on to give our people competent and accountable leadership and governance.

    Since independence in 1960, we have constantly demanded that we be allowed to run the free and fair elections that the masses of our people desire. In resistance to the crudely and violently fraudulent elections that have become the dominant and abiding character of Nigerian politics, many of our youths lose their lives at every election. We want this kind of loss of lives at elections to end in our nation. In particular, we are desperate to ensure that, in the State elections that will come in our homeland between now and August, the machinery of federal power at the disposal of some powerful politicians will not be able to bring electoral fraud and its usual consequences over our homeland.

    From various directions and sources, indications seem to be accumulating that the Yoruba homeland of southwestern Nigeria could be heading towards serious, cataclysmic, violence.  This is easy to discern in the tortuous electoral politics being generated among the people, the worried looks among the people, their utterances, and their numerous writings in countless outlets.

    The immediate backdrop to this picture is the approach of gubernatorial elections in two of the six Yoruba states of the Southwest in June and August 2014. The historic background is that the Southwest is the part of Nigeria where the common people have had, since the independence of Nigeria in 1960, to put up stiff, often violent, resistance to the brutal rigging of their elections by federal electoral agencies and officials, which acts of electoral fraud have often occasioned bloody conflicts, death and ruin.

    Owners of an ancient political culture that was based on orderly selection of rulers, the Yoruba people of Southwest Nigeria have demonstrated uniquely high regards for free, fair and orderly elections in modern times.  Unfortunately, they belong to a federal Nigeria in which the holders of federal power assume that it is part of their prerogative to rig elections in any part of Nigeria. Yoruba resistance to the federal acts of electoral fraud in the Yoruba homeland has produced some of the most serious uprisings in the history of independent Nigeria. Their epic three-month uprising against the federally backed rigging of their Western Region’s election in October 1965 was responsible for destroying the first government of independent Nigeria and ushering in the first Nigerian military coup and military dictatorship. Because the Nigerian federal rulers, agencies and officials have continued, nevertheless, to disregard Yoruba cultural sensitivities in the matter of elections, they have, in the years since 1966, pushed the Yoruba into many other serious acts of resistance. The fear today is that rigged elections in any part of the Yoruba homeland could provoke Yoruba reactions that could escalate into horribly wider conflicts beyond election protests.

    On aggregate, the Southwest is about the only  peaceful area in Nigeria today. It’s  well-known culture of religious tolerance, and open-handed hospitality to, and smooth inclusion of, foreigners into society, has for decades made the Southwest the destination of most Nigerians fleeing from their poorer, insecure, or conflict-rattled homelands. For decades, Nigeria has increasingly experienced conflicts, violence, high crimes, inter-ethnic and religious blood-letting in most of its regions. These have reached a peak today, especially with the killings and devastation carried out by Boko Haram. More and more, the picture is that Nigeria lacks the capability to control these violent troubles.

    Finally, we serve notice that we are hereby taking this important matter to the attention of the most important members of the international community – in particular to the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, and the Foreign Ministers of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, Japan and Canada”.

    It is just as well that authentic Yoruba opinion molders, not some concentrated political outcasts and their newly acquired collaborators, have spoken. President Jonathan can, in all ‘innocence’, claim he knows nothing of all these shenanigans but we know their antics too well to be deceived all over again. We know, for instance, that those who announced their willingness to invest their billions in this looming ‘electoral heist’ are already, as has become the norm in the politics of their part of Yoruba land, in agreement with INEC and key security officials, to make available to them  for use in the two elections, only those electoral officers and security agents who will be  prepared to swear to oaths, probably lying naked  in coffins, after which they  will  be handed huge bribes.

    I would like to conclude by saying that given the  circumstances in which the misuse of our security forces  by the likes of  the Minister of State for Defence has resulted in the United States, for instance, reportedly becoming  rather reluctant to share intelligence with the entire Nigerian security architecture, it is hoped that the Commander-in-Chief will think twice before deploying our soldiers, especially,  and policemen to unwholesome election duties in Ekiti and Osun states given the utmost certainty that such unedifying assignments will further compromise our military and bring our country to further ridicule in the international community. I think the Boko Haram war front is too bloody and sickening enough to dare open another with its ramifying consequences

  • Nigeria:  Giant with a feet of clay

    Nigeria:  Giant with a feet of clay

    Curiouser yet, the president claimed in his Media Chat that his government was winning the terror war even on the heels of two devastating bomb attacks in the  heart of the federal capital city, Abuja

    Nigeria is a big for nothing country, no thanks to a totally depraved and clueless PDP- controlled federal administration that has for the past fifteen years held it under a stranglehold so debased everything has collapsed. Corruption has become systemic; indeed the country’s oxygen of life, insecurity prevails just as hunger roams the land with no less than two thirds of the population living on less than a dollar a day. I watched the Nigeria police announce a measly N50 million ransom for information on the abducted girls, a whole three weeks after they were stolen and my heart sank. I watched, in amazement, the president of Africa’s biggest economy – a joke with no jobs –  wring his hands in utter helplessness, even  as the girls’ parents claimed not to have seen a single Nigerian security man in the monstrous Sanbisa forest when they went on an agonising search of their children. And in what must pass as the most bizarre diversionary tactics, I watched, laughing, as the First Lady tried all she could to divert world attention from a do-nothing federal government after demonstrations erupted globally, insisting on the release of the girls. Curiouser yet, the president claimed in his Media Chat that his government was winning the terror war even on the heels of two devastating bomb attacks in the  heart of the federal capital city, Abuja, on top of  the unprecedented seizure of over 200 girls – exactly how to win a war indeed!

    I stood awake most of the night of Wednesday, 7 May, 2014 listening to commentaries on the South-African national election and I could barely fight back tears for a Nigeria so blessed yet so rudderless. As I listened, waiting , in vain,  to hear of ballot stuffing, ballot snatching, of  police and soldiers standing by,  complicit in rigging, my mind went to the shenanigans that pass muster as elections in Nigeria. I remembered the INEC wonder in Anambra just as I recalled Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole, bemoaning the involvement of the Nigeria police ‘in carrying electoral materials, arresting EDSIEC returning officers and coercing them into a police station which they converted to a collation centre, supervised by policemen imported from Abuja and Lagos in order to subvert the will of the people’. All that, because PDP’s celebrated ‘Mr FIX IT’ comes from the Local Government Area. This is a government and party which would not shy away from rigging a class captainship contest, in a primary school, were one of its chieftains’ children to be involved. PDP has so bastardised Nigeria that you will search in vain for any redeeming feature. When it is not massive oil subsidy scams, unremitted oil billions or unprecedented oil thefts, you would most probably be talking of a minister burning millions of dollars in unauthorised use of chartered planes. Where billions are not being creamed off pension funds, banishing millions to old age-terminal suffering, they would be scheming to rig the most rudimentary of elections, even where it is intra-party, as Nigerians recently saw in its governorship primary elections in Ekiti and Osun state. Even the arid Nigerian Prison Service has suddenly become one of the agencies millions could be creamed off.

    The cumulative effect has been an unedifying corruption of the country’s electoral system such that the PDP, in the course of its stranglehold over Nigeria, has conducted elections which have been described as the worst anywhere on the face of the earth. Even the modest gains recorded in the 2011 general elections have since been rubbished as we saw in both Edo and Anambra states where INEC deliberately sexed up the electoral register.

    Without a doubt, however, PDP’s rigging projections for the Ekiti and Osun 2014 governorship elections are bound to thump anything the world has ever seen in electoral manipulation anywhere. Completely browbeaten and blackmailed, no thanks to his 2015 ambitions, the president appears to have given the go ahead for the mother of all riggings in the coming elections, especially that of Ekiti which they claim will kick start their 2015 country capture. For this purpose, a group of renegades, past masters in rigging and sundry criminalities, whimsically, and, inappropriately called MAJEOBAJE – meaning, do not allow bad things happen even as they plan evil deeds – has been assembled and given orders to ensure that the wishes of the electorate count for nothing in the election, whichever way the Ekiti people voted as INEC is programmed to simply announce PDP the winner.  We are well aware that they have, in this monstrous plot, the support of some so called Yoruba elders, even from outside the PDP, who have practically sold out to the devil itself simply because of their infernal hatred for a single individual. But they will fail.  The immortal Awo had worse plots from amongst Yoruba elements then but they all failed. They have assured President Jonathan that nothing would happen whatever he chooses to do but they are all getting prepared to drink nothing but hemlock. I have, in many articles on this page, advised the president to dust up his history books on the consequences of rigged elections in Yoruba land and how we have proudly accounted for several Nigerian republics solely because some arrogant federal authorities, egged on by some reprobate Yoruba, believe that the Yoruba nation can be trampled politically for their financial gains. That will never happen as no foreign potentate, however seemingly powerful, would ever successfully inflict rulers on a people with a civilised culture and history dating back thousands of years as the Yoruba. Of course, nothing will happen if they allow a free and fair, one man, one vote affair, even if, in their collective wisdom, which God forbid, the Yoruba chose to give their candidate victory. What will never happen, as the case of the conscienceless woman of the Ekiti rerun election fame has shown, is for total strangers, however drunk on power, to inflict rulers on us. For these miserable and insufferable people, an election, properly so called, is not in calculation at all. That must be why the electoral businessman, Kashamu, must have insisted on recruiting ‘soldiers’, as candidates; individuals who so completely ill-represent Yoruba mores and culture, and  shamefully and garrulously  promising to invest billions like this were the stock exchange.

    Having assured Jonathan that the heavens would not fall, whatever they do, they are currently pressurising one of their ghost candidates to step down hours to June 21 just as INEC is being ferociously worked upon to compromise. Electoral materials are programmed to be massively under supplied and very late too in APC strongholds – which actually means all over the state.  They plan to orchestrate unprecedented violence with guns blazing, so that their fake security men, allegedly presently being trained at Badagry and Ojota, amongst other places, would effortlessly supervise ballot stuffing as well as protect ballot box snatchers. They have forgotten that we saw all these during the Obasanjo’s,  deliberately inflicted emergency rule and have therefore more than learnt appropriate lessons. Where they cannot succeed, INEC is expected to declare elections inconclusive as it did in Ondo.

    Omuo, Oye, Ikere and Afao are some of the towns earmarked as their redoubts where genuine and fake policemen would be so overwhelmingly deployed and their nefarious plans perfected. Of course, from their billions of free money from both Kashamu and the national treasury, they plan to bribe not only INEC but also security men and party agents.

    But again, we warn Abuja. Nigeria and specifically, the Jonathan government, has been in the eye of the storm globally these past many weeks. His government has been described as not only corrupt, but equally inept. All manner of words are currently being used to consign Nigeria to the very nadir of civilisation; a situation thousands of WEF meetings cannot assuage. It is therefore in their best interest not to unduly heat up the polity if it is not their intention to create a thousand Somalia rolled into one.

  • John Kayode Fayemi: A deluge of endorsements

    John Kayode Fayemi: A deluge of endorsements

    Ekiti should vote for a proven performer in all ramifications

    As readers of this page must know by now, EKITIPANUPO WEB PORTAL is an indigenous Think-Tank and Intellectual Round-Table, advocating selfless governance of Ekiti people, by sincere Ekiti indigenes. Nothing, even of the minutest interest to Ekiti, is, therefore, allowed to pass, clinically un-interrogated, on the forum. So has it been with the governorship election scheduled for June 21, 2014. For instance, on Tuesday 29, April 2014, Bunmi Fatoye-Matory, a U.S-based, University of Ife and Harvard-trained, proud daughter of Igede-Ekiti, in endorsing Governor Kayode Fayemi, wrote as follows:

    ‘I, a daughter of Igede, a strong believer in ancestral ways and wisdom, a strong advocate of education, culture, integrity, good governance, an international traveller whose not-so-young-eyes have seen many examples of good, bad, wicked, and rejuvenating governance in my travels, heartily and warmly endorse the re-election of our Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.    Eni to ba maa pegan Ajanaku la ni mo ri nkan firi (It’s the person who wants to slight the elephant that would pretend what just passed was something so small he missed it.)

    ‘JKF has turned our Ekiti into a place of pride and development.  We have seen with our own eyes what this thoughtful and forward-thinking Ekiti son has done for our people and our land.

    ‘I am very, very proud of him.   His agenda includes every segment of our population.  He is not one of those politicians who want to turn our youth into thugs shouting “Baba o” and grovelling for the crumbs from the Oga’s table.  He is not a Stomach Infrastructure politician like some of those clamouring to replace him now – selfish, backward, primitive and murderous people with questionable educational and cultural background, who will sell us and future generations down the river. For pursuing people-oriented policies in the tradition of our Sage and Orisa, Awolowo, for being courageous and steadfast in his promises to rejuvenate our Ekiti, for giving us a mirror with which we can look at ourselves and feel proud again, and to continue in this path of growth and development, I heartily endorse JKF for re-election.’

    Earlier, on 19 April, Professor Ade Ojo (OON), Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, a proud Ifaki-Ekiti son and President of the Ifaki Progressive Union, in an absolutely seminal post that would have to be précis-ed, wrote as follows:

    ‘In the epic electoral battle to win the right to occupy  Oke Bareke, the choice before the Ekiti electorate is to choose one of the three major contestants who are now busy selling their candidature to the electorate. Each has been exploring every available avenue: campaign grounds, billboards, the media etc to sell his candidature; the over-riding objective being to market his talents, experience, credibility, trustworthiness, potential and virtues as the best of them all and,  therefore, the most capable to deliver the best dividends of democracy in the vital areas of  health, security and education, infrastructural, economic and industrial development as well as in providing jobs for its teeming unemployed youths.

    Each has leveraged on the inevitable horse-trading strategies as well as the political manoeuvring associated with political campaigns, especially in the third world. These include the ruthless exploitation of the material and financial advantages and other resources that could win over the undecided, the economically disadvantaged, as well as the gullible members of the electorate who can be bought over by the highest bidder. Parts of the tricks are eye-popping propaganda, some of which are nothing but outright lies. All these manoeuvres are keyed into the Machiavellian principle of the end justifying the means.

    These manoeuvres are no doubt useful in attracting to the side of each gubernatorial candidate innumerable gullible and easily compromising members of the electorate in our peculiar socio-political situation in which the political manifesto of one party can be easily replaced with that of the other by merely changing the name of the original owner. Ours is also one in which politicians easily change parties with the receiving political party welcoming the decampee like the proverbial prodigal son. This is why, for example, the two main political parties in Nigeria have been defined as the same beer, bottled under different labels.

    Given the above, I plead with my  Ekiti compatriots to shine their eyes, watch their backs, look beyond the appearances and facades, be wary of the wiles and tricks of each gubernatorial candidate and be extremely careful not to mortgage their conscience or the future of the state, its development and the integrity of Ekiti  people by falling victim to the greedy and mesmerising seduction of the pot of porridge through which, if care is not taken,  birthrights can be traded away and the state bonded to a political monster who would saddle it with an embarrassing political leadership.

    We must endeavour not to fall into the mistake of being seduced by the bait thrown to the electorate by these political parties led mostly by leaders with the common leadership deficits that plague African political leaders: godfatherism, greed, as well as the domineering and tyrannical monopoly of party machinery. In the context of the above scenario, therefore, the most viable option to ensure the future of Ekiti is to vote for a candidate who aggregates the best qualities that would not present our state as one that is bereft of values, honour and integrity. Necessity is therefore laid on every Ekiti to stake his/her vote on the candidate who is best endowed, most credible and more convincingly tested to position Ekiti beyond what and where it is presently: infrastructurally, developmentally and in terms of global best practices in good governance and the delivery of the dividends of democracy to its entire citizenry.

    For the present and future generations of Ekiti, the choice before us is to opt for the  candidate who is  most adequate intellectually, in his  utterances, and his  ability and capability to present well articulated, knowledge-infused and  implementable programmes especially in a knowledge-based economy, the architecture of which the state is already constructing. One of these candidates, obviously, positively towers above the other two on most of the issues and criteria examined above. Given that Ekiti should no more be thrown to the dogs or be returned to the locust years of moral attrition, nor administered by a governor whose record and credibility is suspect and with criminal accusations hanging on his neck.

    Therefore, in summation, my candidate who I plead should be endorsed by all Ekiti, is he who, in public service has proved to be worthy, more convincingly and creditably tested, intellectually prepared, more versed and better exposed in best global practices in good governance, and, most importantly, more representative of the Ekiti virtues of honour, decency and unwavering respect for elders and the traditional order.

    He is Dr John Kayode Fayemi, the incumbent governor of Ekiti State.

    He is strongly recommended as better than any of the other two, and without a doubt, he is the candidate who can make Ekiti a better place for all and who will make Ekitis proud as their governor.  He is not only better than the other two, on all fronts, he would, barring unforeseen eventualities, build on the achievements and records of his present tenure without the need to experiment with plans and programmes. He will improve on areas in which he may have under- achieved and will, without a doubt, invest more effort in making an Ekiti in which all shall have a sense of belonging.

    Ekiti should vote for a proven performer in all ramifications

  • Ekiti 2014: Let us take it up to God in prayers

    Ekiti 2014: Let us take it up to God in prayers

    Ekitis say no more. For in God, not in men or money, do we put our trust

    For forty agonising years, the Israelites, a chosen people of God, wandered through a tough terrain of persons described by the holy writ as giants to claim what should have cost them nothing more than 40 days. In like manner, no thanks to the rigging machine, aka PDP, it took Kayode Fayemi three and a half years to reclaim a popular mandate twice given him by the good people of Ekiti. But then, even though the pronouncement was through a court of law, the miracle was wrought by God through prayers. It was nothing but the result of the prayers by hundreds of thousands of the faithful praying ceaselessly for him as he confronted the Philistines of Nigeria, big men of power who affronted God by playing god. They even said it would never happen in their life time but the good Lord confounded them to their eternal shame. What did they not do? What satanic device did they not bury round the entire state especially in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital where they, myopically believed all the court cases would begin and end? When it became clear Ilorin would feature as a centre of adjudication, didn’t a then serving, perennially notorious senator, all the way from another Yoruba state, go to the premises of the Court of Appeal in Ilorin, to bury a foul smelling satanic object built around a rat known as Asin in Yoruba land intending, thereby, to thwart what God had ordained and the Ekiti people had affirmed by their votes? Again, thanks to the many men of God – they know themselves – who through divine inspiration and words of knowledge had revealed all these well ahead of time. All it took these servants of God to neutralize the evil preparations by these devilish people were efficacious prayers over anointing oil which completely rendered them impotent to the glory of God.

    Another election cycle is here in Ekiti and apart from tons of money, both from Abuja and Ijebu-Igbo, being daily distributed through visits to wards and some other hallowed places, coyly designed as campaign, we know they must be back to their old ways of appealing to the devil itself. While that is their mode of electioneering campaign, Kayode Fayemi is out on the road, in the streets and city centres of all Ekiti towns and villages, campaigning on the basis of his achievements in office and giving insights into what more he would do for the people and asking only to be rewarded by the peoples’ votes for all he has done with the opportunity they gave him.

    However, apart from their money and resort to other worldly artifacts, those things the bible says have eyes but cannot see, mouths but cannot speak, the PDP, through its no.2 person, the warrior himself, Namadi Sambo, Nigeria’s Vice President, has added warfare, by petulantly declaring Ekiti and Osun as war zones even as hundreds of Nigerians are daily being slaughtered by Boko Harm and twice that number of our children are being ceased from the comfort of their schools and turned to sex objects even when the government in which Sambo serves could hardly do a thing to fundamentally alter that real war.

    This, of course, also conforms to all that the Israelites went through but gloriously triumphed over by the grace of God through prayers. I am, emboldened by the experience of the Israelites and the sure-footedness of the Almighty God, this Sunday, to ask all Ekitis as well as the millions from across Nigeria and the world over, who sympathise and pray with us in this war against principalities and powers, to invoke and support their prayers by claiming these promised, divine assurances as contained in the Book of Psalms, Chapters 7, and 94.

    Psalm 7

    Prayer and Praise for Deliverance from Enemies

    7 O LORD our God, in You we put our trust; Save us from all those who persecute us; And deliver us,

    2 Lest they tear us like a lion,

    Rending us in pieces, while there is none to deliver.

    3 O LORD our God, if we have done this: If there is iniquity in our hands,

    4 If we have repaid evil to them who are at peace with us, Or have plundered our enemies without cause,

    5 Let the enemy pursue us and overtake us; Yes, let them trample our lives to the earth, And lay our honor in the dust. Selah

    6 Arise, O LORD, in Your anger;

    Lift Yourself up because of the rage of our enemies;

    Rise up for us to the judgment You have commanded!

    7 So the congregation of the peoples shall surround You;

    For their sakes, therefore, return on high.

    8 The LORD shall judge the peoples; Judge us, O LORD, according to our righteousness, And according to our integrity within us.

    9 Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, But establish the just; For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds.

    10 Our defense is of God,

    Who saves the upright in heart.

    11 God is a just judge,

    And God is angry with the wicked every day.

    12 If they do not turn back,

    He will sharpen His sword;

    He bends His bow and makes it ready.

    13 He also prepares for Himself instruments of death;

    He makes His arrows into fiery shafts.

    14 Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity; Yes, they conceive trouble and bring forth falsehood.

    15They made a pit and dug it out,

    And have fallen into the ditch which they made.

    16 Their trouble shall return upon their own heads, And their violent dealings shall come down on their own crown.

    17 We will praise the LORD according to His righteousness,

    And will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High.

    Psalm 94

    1 The LORD is a God who avenges.

    O God who avenges, shine forth.

    2 Rise up, Judge of the earth; pay back to the proud what they deserve.

    3 How long, LORD, will the wicked, how long will the wicked be jubilant?

    4 They pour out arrogant words; all the evildoers are full of boasting.

    5 They crush your people, LORD;

    they oppress your inheritance.

    6 They slay the widow and the foreigner; they murder the fatherless.

    7 They say, “The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob takes no notice.”

    8 Take notice, you senseless ones among the people; you fools, when will you become wise?

    9 Does he who fashioned the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see?

    10 Does he who disciplines nations not punish?

    Does he who teaches mankind lack knowledge?

    11 The LORD knows all human plans; he knows that they are futile.

    12 Blessed is the one you discipline, LORD, the one you teach from your law;

    13 you grant them relief from days of trouble, till a pit is dug for the wicked.

    14 For the LORD will not reject his people; he will never forsake his inheritance.

    15 Judgment will again be founded on righteousness, and all the upright in heart will follow it.

    16 Who will rise up for us against the wicked? Who will take a stand for us against evildoers?

    17 Unless the LORD had given us help, We would soon have dwelt in the silence of death.

    18 When we said, “Our feet are slipping,” your unfailing love, LORD, supported us.

    19 When anxiety was great within us, your consolation brought us joy.

    20 Can a corrupt throne be allied with you— a throne that brings on misery by its decrees?

    21 The wicked band together against the righteous and condemn the innocent to death.

    22 But the LORD has become our fortress, and our God the rock in whom we take refuge.

    23 He will repay them for their sins and destroy them for their wickedness; the LORD our God will destroy them.

    Amen.

    Ekitis say no more. For in God, not in men or money, do we put our trust.