The Nation Newspaper

Category: Femi Orebe

As a repeat of 1965 beckons in Yoruba Land

But talking seriously, why would a man as mightily blessed of God as President Jonathan elect to tempt God, choosing to have a section of the country he governs, under God, be recklessly declared a war zone

It is extremely unfortunate that for reasons of immaturity, self-centredness, even self-importance, African political leaders never learn from history, but instead, unerringly allow history to repeat itself as tragedy. Southwest Nigeria, no thanks to President Jonathan, and his party the PDP, is fast regressing into the anomie of the 1965 West Regional Election era, about which the following was written: ‘… amid widespread charges of voting irregularities, Akintola’s NNDP, supported by its NPC ally, scored an impressive ‘victory’ in November. There were extensive protests, including considerable grumbling among senior army officials, at the apparent perversion of the democratic process. In the six months after the election, an estimated 2,000 people died in violence, called WETIE – i.e douse him/her with petrol- that erupted in the Western Region’. Interested readers should go to: http://www.mongabay.com/history/nigeria.

If the motivation in 1965 was the urge to solidify the Hausa-Fulani hegemony over the entire country, President Jonathan’s 2015 ambition is the leitmotif for the current looming Armageddon in Yoruba land. In 1965, the NNDP, in which the respected father of Femi Fani-Kayode was the second ranking member, told the world that whether or not the Yoruba electorate voted for its candidates, their party will win the election. Femi Fani-Kayode’s recent rapprochement with President Jonathan is therefore certainly not a happenstance: it must be either the President reached out to him to learn how to have his candidates get elected without the electorate voting for them in the coming governorship elections in Yoruba land or the charismatic Fani-Kayode went there selling his credentials as a ringside observer of the 1965 melodrama. Today the refrain, in Ekiti for instance, is that the electorate will be banished on 21 June, 2014, such that whether

or not Ekitis vote for Ayo Fayose, he will be declared winner. Fani-Kayode, being such a good archivist, should complete his mission by telling his distinguished host the consequences, for country, as well as for the unfortunate dramatis personae, of the 1965 heinous election rigging. The Yoruba nation has also heard, loud and clear, Vice President Sambo declare Odua land a war zone. We do not intend to ask these ‘soldiers of fortune’, these foreigners in our land of honour, not to come for their war, but we promise, in the name of Eledumare, that they will not return in one piece. The Yoruba is the David here but we do hope they remember what happened to the mighty Goliath. Yoruba land has always triumphed in such ‘wars’ beginning from the 18th century treachery of Afonja, the Are-Ona Kakanfo, to the much more recent Abacha plot to decapitate us and lay our land to waste. And when we see the roles being played by some Yoruba elements

in all these, we are poignantly reminded that the same Afonja, against the tradition of never attacking Ife, Yoruba’s spiritual citadel, not only sacked Apomu, but marched on the capital, Oyo-Ile, to demand the abdication of Alafin Aole confirming that internal treachery is not new to Yoruba land. But in all cases, they always ended up miserably, both they, and their dastardly causes.[

But talking seriously, why would a man as mightily blessed of God as President Jonathan elect to tempt God, choosing to have a section of the country he governs, under God, be recklessly declared a war zone, when all we seek is to be able to democratically elect who to rule over us?

I continue to pray that President Jonathan will be restrained in the pursuit of his 2015 ambition. Without a scintilla of doubt, I know it is not that he loves Fayose or Omisore so, or cares that much about Yoruba land he once told Nigerians is populated by rascals. I am sure that what is playing out is that once the North East has played into his hands, and everything is now being done to ensure that elections do not hold there in 2015, the next major challenge for the President and his Think Tank, is how to also have the Southwest vote consumed by a raging inferno he would have set in place courtesy unprecedented post-election crisis, as there is no way this President will get away with rigging elections in Yoruba land. The history books are there for those who need to learn valuable lessons.

We are well aware that as part of preparations for the looming apocalypse, the President has meticulously put in place a group whose history, to the last man, the Yoruba people know only too well. While we know that for Buruji Kashamu this is all about business, not so for the quartet of Fayose, Omisore, Obanikoro and Jelili, a group to which Alao Akala would soon be added. I came to that conclusion during the past week after I read that the court has declared he has a case to answer in the N11.5 Billion case instituted against him by the EFFC. He should, therefore, be a perfect fit for PDP’s candidature.

The above are the reason our people must appreciate what is afoot in our home land, especially what our political enemies have in stock for us. It is heartwarming to note that this is already happening.

It was fascinating, for instance, seeing members of the Ekiti E-11 on the Ekiti state television morning of Thursday, 17 April, 2014, reminding our people of where exactly we are coming from and how, at the instance of these same federal elements, Ekiti had nine governors in eight years whereas Lagos state had two in fifteen. They equally reminded all Ekiti of the mayhem and bloodletting of those years of the locust compared to today’s relative peace.

More harrowing, however, is the likely overall consequences of President Jonathan’s plot to ‘pacify Yoruba land for his 2015 presidential ambition. A determined group of concerned Yoruba patriots, already working to thwart these evil plans, has summarised the situation as follows: ‘Yoruba land is being assailed. The adversaries are tugging at our softest underbelly. There is great insult on our collective sensibilities. The core of what we stand for as a people, our ethos, our values and our heritage are being assaulted. A Fayose in Ekiti, an Omisore in Osun, and possibly, an Alao-Akala (or the likes of him) in Oyo, people who ill-represent core Yoruba values, are being arranged from Abuja to once again, intrude into our development process and set us back one more time. They are telling us that we should reject the likes of Fashola, Fayemi and Aregbesola and welcome with open arms these sorts of individuals. They have let on the loose the likes of Obanikoro and Adesiyan – a Minister of Police Affairs ludicrously nominated solely on the say so of an Omisore – to carry out invidious assignments against us. ( We are reliably informed they are already training some of their fake policemen/thugs in Badagry and Ojota, for instance). If care is not taken, and if all hands don’t come on deck, they will succeed and we will be in trouble. We would once again have to contend with another cycle of brigandage, mis-governance, underdevelopment and unimaginable setback, which God forbids.

WE MUST THEREFORE SAY NO, even on the pain of death!

They have no faith in the ballot box; otherwise we would have said bring it on. But their style is to act with impunity and they would most probably stop at nothing to ensure that our votes do not count. We must therefore be ready and vigilant. The Yoruba nation must never return to Egypt. We must square up to them with intelligence. We must ensure that they fail miserably. Yoruba land, the most politically important empire in these parts from the mid-17th to the late 18th century, holding sway over large parts of some nearby neigbouring countries, notably the Fon Kingdom and that of Dahomey in modern day Republic of Benin, will never again be sold on the cheap by these marauding buccaneers.

April 20, 2014
2015: Jonathan’s ambition irretrievably edging Yoruba Land to Golgotha

The PDP, under President Jonathan’s lead, wants to turn Ekiti, no Yoruba land, to a battle ground

All things considered, there is every indication that President Goodluck Jonathan has decided to shatter the peace subsisting in the only part of the country where there remains a modicum of peace as opposed to the horrifying bloodletting, armed robbery, kidnapping and piracy that have completely overwhelmed other parts of the country. In the only section of Nigeria where children’s throats are not being slit while asleep or where the president’s own uncle and godfather’s children are not being kidnapped, the President, who has appropriately been likened to Nero, is irretrievably edging Yoruba land into war. This president, who has failed to secure the lives and property of Nigerians but who, instead, has justifiably been accused by some Northern leaders of trying to profit from the horrendous and ghoulish mayhem in the North, is doing everything to cause chaos in Yoruba land. Some three months ago, I drew attention to his outflanking and, surreptitiously surrounding the Southwest. Today, he has succeeded in procuring, like merchandise, a minor but respected section of the Yoruba leadership which has, in turn sold him the national conference agenda and donated one of its own to kick start the process. The result is that while the extravagantly funded talk show is ongoing, the hard-headed and vocal section of the Yoruba intelligentsia, the Femi Falana’s, Akin Oyebode’s, the Bisi Adegbuyi’s, not to mention Wale Oshun, who by now would have shouted themselves hoarse about Jonathan’s serpentine designs on Yoruba land, are at peace with the President’s men in Abuja.

No, I am not by any shred of imagination suggesting that the president and his party should not wish to have a reasonable showing in the coming elections in Ekiti and Osun or, indeed, strive to conjure another Jonathan victory in Yoruba land, come 2015; but for the president to want to inflict this species of Yoruba politicians on us; persons whose antecedents are an open book to Nigerians in general and to us, in particular, should ordinarily be beneath him. We were recently told in Ibadan that what he wants in Yoruba land are not politicians but ‘soldiers’ of fortune and we have since seen some of them. But if we may ask: what does Jonathan want with ‘soldiers’ if not to turn Yoruba land into a war zone? After all, there is no evidence to suggest that this President will faint at the sight of more blood. He is not known to squirm at those daily slaughters up North; not even a whimper. Rather, our President embarks on joyous trips to the places like Jerusalem and Rome, in an apparent show of religiosity which Nigerians now know is hollow. It will matter nothing therefore, if a few thousand Yoruba men and women, children in particular, get needlessly slaughtered. His 2015 ambition is enough motivation, he must have surmised.

The President may wish all these and more for us but it is we, the larger, un purchase-able Yoruba, that must think deeply. We must remember that it was during a no less grim circumstances like this that the Yoruba legend, Hubert Ogunde, composed his timeless Yoruba Ronu, a song which our governors must immediately contract the Ogunde family to reproduce in millions for distribution all over the Southwest just as Tunde Kelani’s epic musical film of that song must be shown all over; even in churches to which the President has taken his political tourism. Yoruba must refuse to be led again into a second slavery. Some unthinking Yoruba politicians, out of envy and jealousy have decided to: SE RA NWON NITORI OWO, ATI NITORI IPO. NWON TUN FE SO YORUBA DI BOLU FUN JONATHAN GBA. SUGBON O, ENI BA DALE A BALE LO meaning they want to turn Yoruba to a ball to be kicked anyhow by President Jonathan. Waterloo awaits them.

Nigerians must have seen what the PDP is already making of both the Army and the Police. While we have Senator Adeleke’s word as to how, on the orders of Jonathan’s Police Affairs Minister, seven A.K 47’s were trained on his head, Musiliu Obanikoro, the Minister of state, Army, was reported in newspapers to have led soldiers to Ilaje Ese Odo, Ondo state, last Saturday even as a legislative bye election was ongoing. Till now, a supposedly independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has not been able to announce the result of that election. We can only imagine how many battalions, a President who has no faith in the ballot box, will inundate Ekiti and Osun states with on their respective election day. As a Christian, we hope he knows the story of David and Goliath. It would have been interesting, if not calamitous, that the President went all the way to his South-South region to zero in on a man Nigerian courts declared to be above trial in a massive corruption case, at the instance of EFCC, to do his wish in the PDP primaries in Ekiti.

Need we any further evidence of his designs on Ekiti and its people?

We hope they will not be led by the Satan itself to self destruct. It is our hope that they will not resort to the Oyinlola strong arm tactics of 2007 in Osun state which saw many of our people to their early graves. Those pictures are forever engraved in our subconscious in Yoruba land. Their game is up and the Presidency, INEC, the Nigerian Army and the Police should know that this clarion call is not only being read all over the world but it could very well be part of dispatches from several embassies to their home governments. The most interesting thing, however, is that his armada will not meet Ekiti or Osun people with our hands tied behind our backs. Before that D-Day, however, we, Omoluabi Yorubas, have work to do. I quote below how aptly this work was captured on ekitipanupo during this past week: “There is a gang up to force a regime change in Yoruba land which is being backed up and is fully and massively funded by the presidency

– remember the stolen billions. If we don’t want them to take us back to their inglorious past of infamy and bloodletting, then all hands must be on deck. Our elite must step out of their cocoon and go to their respective towns and villages to reach out to the electorate. The real village square meetings of the people must hold publicly at which the people, especially the impressionable youths, who have voter’s cards and are eligible to vote, will be properly counseled on the communal position on fundamental political issues”, especially the need for Ekiti never to become a colony of stranger elements. Ekiti has forever sealed her freedom with the blood of its citizens shed at the KIRIJI war.

These men should poignantly remind us of U.S President Bush 11 when he wanted a regime change in Iraq. He ferociously battled Iraq, and today, on a daily basis, Iraq loses not less than 20 or double that number of its citizens to suicide bombing. The PDP, under President Jonathan’s lead, wants to turn Ekiti, no Yoruba land, to a battle ground. There would have been no problem if they believe in the ballot box, but they don’t since, even in cahoots with their lackey in the Labour party, PDP cannot garner 40 percent of the votes in either Ekiti or Osun state. Therefore they intend to suborn INEC to do the unthinkable and the impossible. They will forever regret the day as Jonathan would have thereby sounded Nigeria’s death knell. And his 2015 ambition, the leitmotif for all these shenanigans, would have gone with the winds.

We can only hope he will be better advised and will not dare.

April 13, 2014
Of impunity and lies as campaign strategy

Every town, village and community can point to Fayemi’s developmental landmarks

Fehingbepon and Tipa ti kuku are two Yoruba words that not only have the same etymology but, indeed, mean almost the same thing – i.e impunity. They are words that best describe the PDP attitude to elections in Nigeria, but more especially in Yoruba land. Former President Obasanjo deployed Fehingbepon in declaring PDP victorious in Ekiti in 2007 as in the subsequent ‘Mama Ayoka’s macabre dance of ‘conscienceless conscience’. For this election, two events have proved they hadn’t changed one bit. These are: Buruji Kashamu’s ‘I will make Ekiti an example’ speech at Ibadan and the absolutely irreverent manner he stage- managed Fayose’s emergence acting on the orders of President Jonathan. These are clear indications that the shoeless one has bought into the ‘Tipa ti kuku’ strategy of his hatchet men in the Southwest. We would soon see more of Jonathan’s satanic schemes against mainstream Yoruba interests. In this project, his deployment of the two new Yoruba ministers to security portfolios was no happenstance. He is already primed to begin a massive funding of his captured wing of Afenifere for overt purposes to which elements of Labour and Accord had been financially induced. Arrests of APC leaders and supporters by the police on spurious charges are most likely to begin in earnest just as the PDP intends to embark on a massive buying of voters cards at totally unimaginable prices. This, in particular, should tell Nigerians where the billions being daily stolen under President Jonathan are headed. As if the federal government is just waking up, it will now also begin to pour kerosene to Ekiti and Osun as if the product is going extinct.

As earlier mentioned, PDP is relying on ‘Tipa ti kuku’ which is to be stream rolled, like a war armada, from the Villa. Courtesy the presidency, INEC and ALL the security agencies will kowtow to the PDP. President Jonathan has started that process by making the Police ministry a Southwest heredity. The compromised man in charge will do just about anything they direct. In collusion with INEC, they will do everything to rig in the remote areas, the police and other security agencies will have instructions from headquarters to overlook their evil machinations. On election day, APC strongholds will be deprived of ballot papers and where materials come at all, they will arrive late and in insufficient numbers. Even at its topmost level, PDP will not demur from asking INEC to just simply announce its candidate the winner boasting, ‘nothing will happen’. But a thousand and one will happen because Ekiti will not look askance; not after we have been twice cheated in the past.

For the campaigns in the meantime, the two cousins, Labour and PDP, are employing lies as campaign tools. While impunity is PDP’s preferred option, Labour has the rare distinction of being able to manufacture lies at the drop of a hat. Happily, Ekiti people have come to see lies as consistent with the Labour party wherever it rears its ugly head but certainly worst in Ondo state where it is putting our people through a scorching regime of the very opposite of everything it promised during the last election campaigns in the state. Rather than roads, what they see are abandoned projects and in place of new jobs, old ones are being erased at an alarming rate. It cannot but be a surprise that an oil producing state could be shouting itself hoarse over the late disbursement of Sure-P funds even where there is nothing to show for the billions received.

The PDP in Ekiti has miserably, but unsuccessfully, tried to draw a similarity between Mimiko and Fayemi lying that the latter will behave like Mimiko after his already God-ordained victory. In dismissing this arrant nonsense, I have Ondo-state born Femi Odere to thank for his highly analytical article: ‘Between Fayemi and Mimiko’ –The Nation, Tuesday, 25 March 2014.

Wrote Odere: ‘The innumerable socio-economic milestones that are geared towards the creation of jobs and wealth by the Fayemi administration within a short span of a little over three years in a state that comes second from the rear out of 36 states in terms of federal allocation speak volumes about a leader who knows what needs to be done for his people. Mimiko, in contradistinction, flagged off his administration by announcing the construction of a Dome in Akure about five years ago. As you read this, the Dome is still under construction even after its cost had been reviewed upwards. Mimiko established a Tomato Processing factory somewhere in Akoko during his first term. But no sooner after this factory was commissioned than the place got converted into a pure water factory. Mimiko announced years ago that a cement factory will be built in the state, but the bush where the factory was to be sited is yet to be cleared. Mimiko announced during his first term that privatisation of the state’s moribund industries is the way to go in order to spur economic growth and job creation. Oluwa Glass Factory, one of the industrial flagships of the late Papa Adekunle Ajasin administration which fell under his privatization sledgehammer is yet to produce a single piece of glass years after its privatization. No sooner than the state government relinquished its controlling equity in the Okitipupa Oil Palm Processing Factory, several financial scandals broke to rock the factory’s government-appointed Managing Director. The factory is once again comatose. The Akure-Oba Ile airport road, started during his first term at a cost of several billions of naira, still uncompleted, the mere eight-kilometre road has been re-awarded at a new cost of several billions. The Olokola Free Trade zone, an initiative of the late Agagu administration that could have been a major catalyst in spurring huge economic growth in the state was jettisoned by Mimiko because the politics of the Free Trade zone is more important to him than the economic and job-creation benefits which the trade zone would have created for the people of the State. One can go on ad infinitum’

Ekitis, a very discerning people, need not seek any further than this testimonial to put Opeyemi Bamidele where exactly he belongs. Incidentally he has just upped his game by claiming that ALL the 132 towns and villages in Ekiti have mineral deposits. There is also the chimera of what he calls a welfare package for all the chiefs in the state. Lies, lies and yet more lies! You would think he was addressing impressionable 5-year olds. The PDP, master riggers that they are, are no better; only that their strategy is at variance with Labour party’s Joseph Goebbels’s inspired propagandist lies. They are infinitely more satanic and for them, nothing is beyond conjecture.

On the other hand, however, Ekitis already know Fayemi like the back of our palms. Indeed, his other sobriquet, apart from Ilufemiloye 1, is ‘Owi be e, se bee’ –he who fulfils promises. Fayemi only has to tell you his government would do so and so, and the town, community or individual can go to sleep. It is this trustiability that underpins his annual pre-budget state-wide tours, asking the people what their priorities are for the year’s budget. It is the reason why today, every town, village and community can point to his developmental landmarks.

All these devilish schemes are highlighted that we Ekitis may be prepared to the last man to counter whatever the plans the caterwaulers may have up their sleeves. Equally important is the need for the world to know: the likes of the US, Canada, Britain, Germany, Russia, China, the AU, all of which carry the can of the aftermath of immature and anti-democratic actions of African leaders must, willy nilly, be put on notice as to what is afoot in Yoruba land, courtesy President Jonathan, and, long before the Armageddon.

April 6, 2014
Fayemi: Four more years (3)

We will repay Fayemi with our votes come June 21, 2014, and no Jupiter will succeed in manipulating our victory

Today, we conclude the trilogy on the above topic and from the outset, let us emphasise that the manner of former governor Ayo Fayose’s emergence as PDP’s governorship candidate in the forthcoming governorship election in Ekiti has clearly demonstrated the Jonathan mindset. It is one that will rig elections, even a national one and say, so what? Here is a president who has severally been described as a snake and therefore capable of committing the most heinous democratic coup without batting an eyelid, still believing he could not be linked to it; a skilful falconer. He is doing this not knowing the reverberations can completely evaporate his 2015 ambitions. Even if the PDP could so contemptuously brush aside the interests of its remaining 12 contestants who each paid N11 Million, I think it behoves President Jonathan to have thought of the larger picture, the consequences for self and country especially for a man claiming to lead a transformational government. Had he done that, he would have realised that Ekiti has gone far past his candidate in the full knowledge that former governor Ayo Fayose has a past, writ large, in the state. It is a past so bad some people reading this will believe my days are numbered. In the instant case though, there are no fears, as Ayo is my own brother. Unfortunately, Jonathan and his party’s attraction to him is exactly that past of unmitigated mayhem. It is what they see as the only answer to Fayemi’s intimidating record as governor. For them, therefore, the other 12 contestants are what you will describe as disposables.

But the truth is, and I can see it a mile away, Fayose is being used in this macabre dance to test run 2015. I will explain. The way he was egregiously announced over and above the others, in a take-it-or- leave-it audacity now reportedly ratified by the party’s National Working Committee, is a perfect picture of how the president intends to use the INEC not only in the two 2014 governorship elections in Yoruba land, but also at the presidential election come 2015. They think nothing of failure and if there happens to be a crisis , especially arising from manipulating the 2015 election, the fallback position will be to encourage the South- South to secede with Jonathan, the snake, claiming he has no hands in it as he would not have, otherwise, convoked his diversionary national conference. They see it as a win-win situation. Well, I do not know what could happen at the national level, but his minders got it massively wrong in the Southwest.

In 1966, the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC)-controlled federal government, after ravaging the Western Region, giving it a sole administrator of its own description, was about unleashing the entire Nigerian Army on it when the bubble burst. That story would repeat itself in ’83 and ‘93 with dire consequences for the country. I have no idea how old the president’s current anchormen were in 1965 -66 but the history of that carnage in the entire Western Nigeria, but especially in Lagos, is written in indelible ink for those who have ears. One other thing driving their plot is the fact that, at the instance of a Senator Omisore and his likes in the Senate, that distinguished chamber, at a time Omisore was going to contest the Osun governorship election, enacted that governorship appeals would now terminate at the Supreme Court . With that in mind, they believe that INEC only has to declare their wish and the rest will be history as the case could go on, literally, for a life time. They need be told that if any of the elections in Ekiti or Osun is rigged – please note there is a conditional precedent – then the Americans may have missed their 2015 apocalyptic date for Nigeria by several months.

The history of the Yoruba goes back thousands of years. We were never, as a corporate whole, slaves to any group, small or big and no Kashamu, for whatever personal profits, can haul us into any modern day servitude to Jonathan even when an Obasanjo now counts for nothing with him. If six decades down the line, Awo fed us on education, nobody, especially from the Avatar’s neck of wood, will now come and haul Yoruba into any kind of modern day slavery. We will remain our own masters, deciding our own preferences, making our choices, like it or not. Fortunately for us in Yoruba land, especially in Ekiti and Osun, the ‘soldiers’ Jonathan is pressing into service have such odious history our people can never forget in a hurry, be it Omisore as deputy governor in Osun or Fayose, as governor of Ekiti – a history of blood and mayhem whose gory details I will leave to Yoruba stakeholder groups which must now rise and denounce this millennial plot against the Yoruba nation. In contra-distinction to their ‘soldiers’, those they are trying to oust through foul means in both Ekiti and Osun are exemplars in the true tradition of cultured Yoruba people, men who have worked their hands to the bare bones in the service of our people. They have both rekindled the Awo developmental paradigm and we can no longer be taken back to the 14th century. Dating back to Awo, the Yoruba has a history of development which they appreciate. Short-changed during both the military interregnum and the PDP’s seven years of the locust when every facet of life in the region degraded, the last four years of the APC has been an era of reconstruction and modernisation.

In education, where Fayemi’s first surprise as governor was the state’s unbelievable 29 percentage pass in the preceding WASCE, pass rate last year was above 70 percent. The Youth Commercial Agriculture Programme has seen thousands of our hitherto unemployed young people become gainfully engaged, even as employers of labour themselves. Care of the elderly has been taken to a new level totally unprecedented anywhere in Nigeria. In tourism, Ikogosi, popular only as a rodents’ reservation colony in PDP days, has been completely transformed into a world class tourist centre now being patronised by a minimum 20,000 local and international visitors per month. Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, glows, day and night, just as urban renewal is on-going in other towns. Among other state agencies, the Water Corporation is doing everything possible to increase the water stock in the state so that many more areas can have treated water and given the governor’s leadership style and pedigree, the World Bank is giving substantial assistance to this just as it is doing in education and like so many other development partners currently actively engaged in the state. It is no longer the Ekiti State Ayo Fayose was governor over.

Despite the lies being peddled about by the opposition, teachers remain happy and supportive of a

governor that has done the most for them of any Ekiti governor.

Most local government workers are appreciative of the fact that to continue in employment, the government had, of necessity, to plug the corroding leakages which a tiny few was using to short change the system. Okada riders, recently empowered by the government, can see the difference

between the roads, then and now, as they ply their trade on the new Ekiti road network which must rank among the best in the entire country even if the federal government is deliberating with holding refund of roads done on its behalf with its formal authorisation.

Ekitis are no ingrates. We will repay Fayemi with our votes come June 21, 2014, and no Jupiter will succeed in manipulating our victory. Rather, it is their serpentine ploys, unholy alliances and evil schemes that will collapse like a pack of cards.

March 30, 2014
Fayemi-four more years (2)

It is important that our people be made very aware of PDP/LABOUR/ACCORD satanic plans for the coming elections so that we will all be on our guard

We are not confused. We are very clear about where we have come from, where we are

and where we are headed. When we started this journey, we said it is a collective rescue mission. That is the journey that has brought us this far. We are on the march again and

we are unstoppable. We know that the journey has not reached an end because we have not finished the job. That is why we are in this race. It is to serve our people.” Gov. Kayode Fayemi.

Fifty years ago, back at the prestigious Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, the young journalist who covered the unveiling of ‘Domestic And Foreign Dimensions Of Nigeria’s Politics’, another from Prof. Jide Osuntokun’s stupendous brain and wordsmithery, would promptly have got me Into ‘imposition’ or even the far stiffer ‘Detention’ for having the audacity to write that I was the Professor’s ‘friend and classmate’ at The School’. O yes, for a less ‘humongous’ sacrilege as that, or even for no offence at all, you could very well be wacked into any of those two purgatories and should any reason be needed at all, it could be ascribed to something as nebulous as ‘urinating all over the compound’. Boy, that journalist should be careful next time as his ascription should have gone to Seniors Bode Fadase and Sanmi Ajaja who had come to celebrate one of their own: the distinguished Prof of History and Diplomat, who belonged with them in the witheringly brilliant class of ‘60’. Sir, I hereby apologise on behalf of the journalist.

It is just as well that we are continuing our celebration of another distinguished alumnus of The School, and the Executive Governor of Ekiti, Dr Kayode Fayemi, who, this past week, picked his nomination form as an APC aspirant in Abuja and later arrived Ado- Ekiti to the waiting hands of a tumultuous APC members and, a knowing and appreciative Ekiti citizenry, who would love nothing better than to see Fayemi continue his wizardry of impressive multi-sectoral development of the state. What a huge democrat Hon Opeyemi Bamidele would have been called today if he had waited to be denied the same opportunity of picking that same form before porting to the Labour Party, a mere PDP under party, claiming he was snuffed off when he never at any time as much as officially informed his ward of his intention to contest on the APC platform.

Without a scintilla of doubt, no single edition of any newspaper in the country today can exhaustively do justice to the multi-sectoral development the Collective Rescue Mission, spearheaded by Dr Kayode Fayemi, through the grace of the Almighty God, has accomplished in the state underpinned, as it were, by his ramifying 8-Point Agenda. I therefore do not have to start repeating his achievements on this half page. Rather, as was the practice of the column in the pre-rerun election days of 2009, this piece will be dedicated to enlightening the electorate in both Osun and Ekiti states but more specifically Ekiti, where the first of the two governorship elections will come up. Happily, these are two states which emerged from the old Western Region where the Avatar, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, made the difference more than five decades ago by his strategic investment in education which he provided free of charge to the entire children of the region. The result is that today, no governor in any South-western state can ask newspaper editors to publish just about anything, however odious about him and his administration, because five percent of his people can neither read nor write. Awo’s trail-blazing revolution further ensured that, today, there is no family where you would not find at least one or even more graduates, just as it ensured that my small town, Are-Ekiti, with a population of about 30, 000, has produced 10 University professors, three of them from one single family.

I state all these because of the totally pedestrian logic of the PDP and its client parties which informs them that to get votes in the coming elections in either Ekiti or Osun state, all their Abuja suzerain has to do is make kerosene available to our people. The cheek of it is that this is a product through which they steal daily in billions of naira in the name of kerosene subsidy whereas the Nigerian poor and their children daily line up at filling stations where kerosene is bought at over a N100.00 per litre when available, at all. PDP will have to go locate its Somalia elsewhere, far, far from Ekiti or Osun.

The electorate in these two states, thanks to education and an innate intelligence, can very easily make a distinction between Ekiti and Osun states of a mere four years ago and today. They remember the days of the locust just as they can see the developments all around them. I think at this point, we should allow Mr Femi Awoniyi, a Germany- based Ekiti Diasporan, give his testimony. Answered Femi to the question: What changes have you noticed in Ekiti? In an interview published in The Nation of Sunday, March 16, 2014: ‘Many. First, the peace that reigns in the state today is a marked departure from the insecurity that ruled before Fayemi’s coming to power when political violence and urban banditry were pervasive. For me, a revolutionary feat of the Fayemi administration is the introduction of social security scheme for the elderly. It has greatly helped to alleviate abject poverty in the rural communities. Look at Ikogosi. The place has been completely transformed and it is drawing tourists from all over the country. That is a boost to the state economy. Programmes such as the Youth Commercial Agricultural Development and Youth Volunteer Corps Employment Scheme have taken thousands of our youths away from the streets into productive economic activities.’ He went on and on.

It is therefore the height of the illogic for the PDP to think that as long as they can inundate our streets with soldiers and men of the PDP police, they can scare off educated and intelligent individuals who know, like the palm of their hands, the difference between the PDP seven years of the locust and today when all the Southwest states under the banner of the APC are aggressively pursuing an integrated economic development paradigm for the entire region.

It is important that our people be made very aware of PDP/LABOUR/ACCORD satanic plans for the coming elections so that we will all be on our guard because we will never go back to those harrowing days in ‘Egypt’. One of them is for the president to financially starve the Southwest states even up to a point governors in Ekiti and Osun may not be able to pay salaries. To this end, federal allocations to states had plummeted by about 40 percent in the first quarter of the year whilst states friendly to the president are more than fed from grants from such funds as the ecological fund. Naturally, those of their clients who get away with murder through oil subsidy, pension scam, kerosene subsidy scam etc will all be requested to make huge donations to their war chest. But this is where they will remember we have a saying here, dating back to the First Republic: BO ROWO MI, O RINU MI meaning, ‘yes, you see my hands taking your bribe, but you can’t know my mind.’ Our people must take these monies when offered, indeed, ask for more because they were stolen from all of us in the first place.

March 23, 2014
Governor Kayode Fayemi: Four more years (1)

This coming election is another opportunity for us in Ekiti to once again demonstrate, and, confirm that Ekiti will never again be the play thing of these smart Alecs

As the Kayode Fayemi Campaign rolls out next week to canvass the votes of his trusting and ever appreciative Ekiti people, it is the bounden duty of this column to play John the Baptist and foretell his second coming because, as our people never fail to say: JKF = 4+4 =8. This assignment is a ‘must do’ because long before our people ‘knew’ him, even when impunity ruled the roust and mandate thieves arrogantly seized his mandate for a season, playing god, this column had started, and never for once waivered, that here cometh the man who will make all the difference to our lives in Ekiti. And why was I so sure? Simple. It was his total person. Here is a young man, scion of a decent Christian parentage, intellectually sound and supremely confident, humble yet so self-effacing you are bound to miss his stern interior; a man of principles. It took me no time to know this is a decent gentleman you can trust and one who, unlike the other wannabe governors, will never deceive our people. And so for the first time since 1983, when I was deeply involved in Ondo State politics and indeed had to run to Lagos from that year’s raging inferno as was copiously reported on the front page of The Guardian of Tuesday 20, 1983, I saw myself irretrievably drawn, first to Dr Fayemi, and only later to Ekiti politics. Governor Kayode Fayemi, as our people have come to roundly acknowledge, is simply a miracle worker. Extremely easy to work with, he is a glutton for work; so untiring sitting by his table, all you can do is pray God for His continuing grace upon such a dedicated public servant.

The Yoruba says, if you do not know where you are going, you must at least know where you are coming from. Ekiti is today, without a doubt, not where Governor Kayode Fayemi met it. Therefore, for some of us, who may have forgotten those parlous days of Ekiti being a state of ‘one day, one trouble’; days of murder and near assassinations, days of all manners of illegalities, we need remind them of those pre-Fayemi days, to let them know that only CONTINUITY can keep Ekiti in its present mode of multi-sectoral development, peace and concord, in the utmost hope that the caterwaulers will never be allowed to ever return us to those better forgotten days. Given these extant circumstances, Dr Fayemi, as governor, hadn’t a day’s honey moon. Rather, the long journey to damage control, reconstruction, renewal and modernising had to begin in earnest because it was a period when the preceding seven years had seen as many governors, one of which was for as long as one day; a state, as I mentioned earlier, of ‘one day one trouble’ and one that was nothing more than a client state of big PDP chieftains from as far afield as Ibadan and Lagos. Thus the doyen of amala politics, all the way from the old metropolis would come, pick and choose whichever contract meets his fancy while the militrician from Lagos ensured he got from Ekiti what funding the party in Lagos could no longer source from its own estranged member of the federal cabinet, in addition to the big man descending to the measly level of hiring helicopters, at hugely inflated prices, for respective Ekiti governors.

This coming election is another opportunity for us in Ekiti to once again demonstrate, and, confirm that Ekiti will never again be the play thing of these smart Alecs. We must, and will vote CONTINUITY, whatever the schemes of these villains. This trilogy will explicitly explain the devilish plans of the PDP which include, not only a massive misuse of the military and the police, but named towns where INEC will deliberately under supply electoral materials and villages, specially around border towns, where PDP intends to use the voters cards which they will not only obtain officially, but also print as happened in Akwa Ibom and Abuja in 2011. They will meet a very prepared Ekiti because our people, trusting in God, have said: NEVER AGAIN.

But the above was only the tip of the Augean stable Dr Fayemi met on his inauguration on 16 October, 2010. State infrastructure had collapsed, education, for which the state had always been celebrated from time immemorial had gone comatose, Ekiti youths were now no better than hordes of okada riders, social relations had so broken down that a blood relation top party member could invite his own relation to a nonexistent meeting only to get him killed in his bed room, and the whole place had become a killing field with life, in general, becoming short and brutish, analogous only to, please pardon the exaggeration, Europe after the thirty years war.

The above was the unflattering Ekiti Dr Kayode Fayemi inherited at his inauguration. Countervailing all these, however, were a combination of an over pouring of love and support for him by the vast majority of our people, his own innate ability and willingness to bury himself in the herculean task of reconstruction, and the perspicacity to attract to himself , persons of ability, passion and commitment who would assist him in deconstructing this mountain of monstrosities.

But first, the Augean stable had to be cleared. And one of the first individuals he called upon to join him in doing this, was Professor Bolaji Aluko, the then U.S-based Professor of Chemical Engineering, scion of the one and only Prof Sam Aluko of blessed memory, and now, Vice-Chancellor, Federal University of Otueke, who had many years back come to the then Ekiti State University, to offer inestimable assistance to the university during the Vice Chancellorship of Professor Akin Oyebode.

For the short time he functioned, Bolaji, hard-headed and deep, with a very sharp and penetrating mind, was, to the governor, the equivalent of the U.S White House Chief OF Staff; his highest ranking ‘staff’, to whom there were no off limits in the government. This was the man who painstakingly, went through the books, asking questions, ferreting out extant policies which had been mostly observed in breach, and through countless meetings with heads of departments, was able to avail the governor a kaleidoscopic view of the putrefying state of affairs which needed to be promptly attended if the new administration was not to be manacled by the ineptitude of past years.

Conscious of the parlous state he inherited, he immediately promised a complete turnaround beginning with a comprehensive review of what had transpired in government in the past 42 months, not as a witch hunt of the past PDP governments, but with a view to strengthening the fabric of democratic governance and to correct the ills of the past. He equally pronounced the following policies about which he must be extremely happy to be judged today given his sterling performance on all: free education for primary and secondary schools pupils, a review of the then recently jacked up fees at the state-owned tertiary institutions; free health programme for children below age five, pregnant women, the physically challenged and the aged and including massive job creation, modernisation of agriculture, improvement of infrastructure, provision of adequate security, care for the elderly, tourism and industrial development, as well as promotion of gender equality and women empowerment.

Next week governor fayemi hits the ground running.

March 16, 2014
Jega’s make or mar elections

If Jega succeeds in saying no, this time around, his name will be written boldly on the right side of history

‘Every time, you use external power to ride roughshod over the will of the people in this country, the trigger for the demise of that fledgling democracy was always in the West. If you think the vehicle to smuggling yourself into office is via manipulation and ‘Anambracadabra’, Ekiti is not Anambra. The Mama Ayoka story is still fresh. What I resent is the kind of contemptuous noise coming from the PDP about the plan to take over the state, to capture the South-west and Ekiti and Osun states being the entry point, the gateway in that ‘operation capture the south-west’. You may succeed in capturing and you may also succeed in sounding the death knell of this democracy. It is not a threat really; it is more of an advice to anyone who might be confusing the President.’ Gov. Kayode Fayemi

In an earlier article – Southwest 2014 elections: will President Jonathan allow history be his guide, Jan 5, 2014– I wrote as follows quoting a co-columnist: ‘we in this part of the country are now much more determined to uphold and show our rejection of electoral fraud – that heinous disease that has periodically brought disaster upon Nigeria since 1964. We are too culturally attached to free and fair elections to tolerate electoral fraud.’

Much more than the much hyped 2015 Presidential election, the Ekiti/ Osun elections offer Prof Attahiru Jega, Chairman, INEC, a distinct opportunity to write his name in gold or infamy. More than any of his predecessors – Eyo Esua (1960-1966), Michael Ani (1976-1979), Victor Ovie-Whiskey (1983), Eme Awa (1987-1989), Humphrey Nwosu (1989-1993), Prof. Okon Uya (1993-1994), Sumner Dagogo-Jack (1994-1998), Ephraim Akpata (1998-1999), Abel Guobadia (2000-2005), as well as his irredeemable immediate predecessor , Maurice Iwu (2005-2010), Jega came into office brandishing the sterling qualities of a decent academic – a University Vice-Chancellor to boot. I took the trouble of naming his predecessors to help him gauge what bile Nigerians have for some of them today.

If on appointment Jega had thought he was settling down into a sinecure, the PDP, past masters at election rigging, soon taught him otherwise. The new Chairman soon began his electoral odyssey when he was suborned to cancel the 2011 opening day election after it had almost ended in several parts of the country. Those who should know have since told us it was all a PDP ploy designed to know where in the North Gen. Buhari was very strong electorally to enable the PDP and INEC deploy appropriate rigging strategies. It will be recalled that days before the presidential election, it was reported in some newspapers that persons with millions of ballot papers were arrested in Abuja. But before you could say jack, the PDP Police, aka Nigeria Police, had shut down the trail and Nigerians no longer heard a word about it. This was the real reason Justice Salami had to be yanked off the Presidential Election Tribunal where he had already granted Buhari access to electoral materials for purposes of a forensic examination but, reversing which, was at the very first sitting of the reconstituted tribunal.

If that cancellation was Professor Jega’s intro into PDP’s maelstrom of electoral perfidy, he should make the Anambra magic his last for the sake of posterity. We pray he does not burn his fingers in either the Ekiti or Osun elections because, truth be told, none of these two states is Anambra. And we are not bragging here. Rather, we are saying that if these habitual election riggers succeed in tampering with elections in any of Ekiti or Osun where the incumbent governors have so impacted peoples’ uprising several measurable and meaningful developmental strides, they will be asking for a peoples’ insurrection of seismic proportions, complete with international consequences that will have the capacity to ground Nigeria.

I urge those of them to whom this may mean nothing, being basically self-centred politicians, to reflect on the following recent comments in the New York Times concerning Boko Haram, which is currently gnawing at the country’s entails: “Boko Haram undermines the Nigerian government, leaving it floundering in ineffectual expressions of sympathy for the victims, vowing to redouble its engagement, with declarations of eventual victory that now have little credibility. Although the group’s aims appear limited or mysterious, it is clearly succeeding in one essential goal: critically undermining Nigeria’s federal government. The boarding school attack seemed designed to bring maximum humiliation to President Goodluck Jonathan, occurring as it did two days before centennial celebrations in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, attended by the French president, François Hollande, and some African leaders. The centennial celebrations went on last week and it seemed as though every rogue, scoundrel and genuine hero, living or dead, from Nigerian history was entitled to an award.” These riggers should understand that the world is watching the chicanery going on here; so bad that groups of women societies had to match through the streets of several cities this past week. Unfortunately, the PDP is grossly beyond shame or embarrassment.

In case this means nothing even to the highest ranks of the PDP, it is our fervent hope that Professor Jega, a scholar, should understand the full implication of this international put-down, and so would elect to stand firm, in refusing to make INEC a PDP rigging partner this time around. Given President Jonathan’s paranoia with 2015 it is obvious he will buy any tales from his Southwest PDP members; people he had literally forgotten for the better part of his five years in office in matters of quality appointments which had gone in their numbers to other parts of the country. Incurable optimists that they are in turn, even when they know their party is thoroughly despised in Yoruba land, they are going about with a swagger, promising billions from discredited sources and awaiting rigging orders from above. Happily, the Yoruba know their leaders as well as which party is working for the development of Yoruba land and the overall happiness of the greater majority of our people. Each of Governors Fashola, Amosun, Ajimobi, Aregbesola and Fayemi has demonstrated such unequalled passion and panache in service to Yoruba land that it has become so obvious the PDP stands no chance of ever winning an election fairly in these parts ever again. Rather than the president permitting himself to be deceived, he should visit any of the Southwest states incognito, even if at night.

I advise Professor Jega not to put his place in history on the line by joining this multitude to do evil. There had been no election since 1999 in which the PDP did not manipulate INEC, using it shamelessly to rig elections even in places the opposition ended up winning. So bad was it in 2003, 2007 that those elections were adjudged by international observers as the worst anywhere under the sun. But because the PDP is simply beyond shame, it has never mattered to its members what international opprobrium they attracted to the country. If Jega succeeds in saying no, this time around, his name will be written boldly on the right side of history. Otherwise, it will be infamy and eternal damnation. The choice is his to make. Under intense pressure to do wrong, he should simply resign and eclipse this government.

March 9, 2014
Is the ‘Coordinating Minister’ title a misnomer?

There are tens of such massive thefts you begin to wonder what exactly any minister is coordinating in this corruption cesspit of a government

The more you look at literally every department of government becoming a cesspool of corruption, the more you wonder if anybody is truly in charge of the Nigerian economy. Add insecurity, and you wonder if the country itself is simply not on autopilot. The more you see seemingly untouchable mandarins messing up key sectors of the economy, the more confused you are about whether or not President Jonathan knows that the buck really stops at this table. Happily, one area where there could be no confusion, however, is in what exactly should constitute the responsibility of a so-called Coordinating Minister of Economy. Who then is a coordinating minister? By my Encarta Dictionary definition, this should be the one who organises a complex enterprise in which numerous people are involved and brings together their contributions to form a coherent or efficient whole. So, how effectively or competently has Dr Okonjo-Iweala performed her functions of coordinating an economy in which almost every funding initiative has been turned to a cesspit of corruption? Or to ask a more direct question: was she promoted over and above her competence? Is her supervisor, the president, adequately or properly overseeing her work or is the Nigerian system that congenitally corrupt that it is impossible to make a success of the job?

Where exactly lies the problem of an economy that presents with so many fault lines as the one we have?

It will be extremely difficult to question the qualification of Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, a PhD holder in Economics, former World Bank President who has also had several years of cognate experience part of which involved shaping up the economies of some third world countries like ours. Is she otherwise being undermined by more powerful colleagues who she dares not as much as attempt to question, however perfunctorily they are performing in their equally key ministries?

If that is the problem, why would she not, as she once did when serving under an imperial President Obasanjo, simply resign, head back to the U. S or elect to go into the murky waters of Nigerian politics? Only Mrs Okonjo- Iweala can answer these questions but she needs be told that the more she hangs on amidst this bravura of kleptomania, the more she risks a diminution to her integrity since the economic leakages occurring thereby are opening Nigeria up to international opprobrium. A good example of this embarrassment is the recent hasty suspension of the Central Bank Governor. While I hold firmly to the belief that there shouldn’t be any public officer the president cannot discipline, the process is of great moment and it must be seen to conform with constitutional provisions. I wonder if the Coordinating Minister is aware that, had she been alive to her responsibilities, there should have been no argument,

whatever, about the balances on the country’s bank accounts or about how much NNPC made or how much it remitted to the federation account. These are figures she should obtain by the mere pressing of a computer button. Let us briefly quote Professor Bolaji Aluko in his Mid-week Essay on the Sanusi conundrum in this regard: ‘Oil is the life-blood of Nigeria, and NNPC its conduit – and a JP Morgan account, its custodian. But she is sure that NNPC has a foreign account – or foreign accounts – since it trades abroad, but NOT sure whether it is JP Morgan or not, nor has she EVER seen such a statement. Granted she is not the Auditor-General, but, for crying out loud, this is where the greatest single amount of money that goes into the Consolidated Revenue account comes from. I would be curious to see that statement of account – either directly from NNPC, from the Auditor General’s Office or, indeed, from JP Morgan itself. Episodically, I shall see/ask, why out of the X trillion Naira in the account, only Y trillion Naira was paid into the federation account last month. NNPC should be infinitely more transparent, and the Finance Minister, much more curious.’

Given the Coordinating Minister’s less than serious engagement with her responsibilities therefore, should it surprise us that literally every funding initiative of the Jonathan administration has been turned to a watering hole by these smart Alec’s? When you see the oil subsidy racket of 2012 and think you had seen the worst, then pops up the humongous multi-billion naira pension scam. As you are wondering what exactly your president is doing in office, then comes the totally bewildering NNPC accounts. They are so bewildering you know neither how much oil is pumped or exported daily, nor how much of what was received had been credited into the NNPC’s open or shadowy accounts or transferred, as constitutionally prescribed, into the federation account. But you are actually just beginning to see the tip of the iceberg in this circuitous corruption racket that now runs the national government.

Going by The Nation’s Editorial of Monday, February 24, 2014, titled ‘Plundering Woes,’ none of this government’s mind-boggling rogueries equals what they have been doing with the Service Wide Vote (SWV), especially in its devil-may-care impunity, in the sure certainty that nothing will happen to them, the perpetrators which could go right up. Designed primarily to make provision for financial emergencies of government, the SWV has been turned into a criminal conduit pipe. And we have the House Committee headed by Hon. Solomon Adeola to thank for discovering how N4.7 trillion was spent, as against a vote of N2.1 trillion approved between 2004-12. To give only two examples, the authorities of the National Teachers’ Institute, Kaduna, were alarmed when, on December 31, 2012, they suddenly had a bank alert informing them of a credit of N791M at a time it had not requested for any financial assistance. They promptly paid it back into government coffers. More amazing, however, was the Budget Office claim that it paid N5 billion to NAFDAC whereas the agency claimed it received only N365 million. The National Boundary Office would later completely deny ever receiving any N2 billion from the same Budget Office just as Chairman Giade of the NDLEA said the agency received nothing of the N65 million penned against it. There are tens of such massive thefts you begin to wonder what exactly any minister is coordinating in this corruption cesspit of a government. Concluding, the editorial said “if the presidency does not account for, and punish the felons who perpetrated these acts, we doubt whether the new vote of N1 trillion will be deployed for its rightful purposes by entrenched gluttons of government believed to be working in cahoots with the presidency’. If the Jonathan administration ever wanted to fight corruption, this should be the starting point. Just allow the anti-corruption agencies take

in the appropriate Director-General of the Budget Office and officials of the respective banks which transferred these sums and they should be singing like a canary. The National Planning Office cannot even account for a penny of its own N400m largesse since it has, apparently, all gone into thin air.

With these non-exhaustive instances of leakages in the economy, it is obvious Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala has been coordinating nothing. And if she had been doing that, it has been so poorly coordinated that she hardly deserves a day’s pay. She is too highly regarded, home and abroad, to continue to play at this level.

March 2, 2014
State of osun: Bishops for hire

For purposes of whatever may be coming to some of our churches, if any, from the U.S, must we continue to denigrate that which is ours?

In his article, ’Osun and Traditional Religion: A Bishop’s Howler’, the erudite scholar, Professor Moses Akinola Makinde, did such a marvellous job of dissembling Bishop Mike Bamidele’s misdirected shibboleths as they concern Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s wide ranging educational reconstruction in the state of Osun that it becomes almost superfluous to weigh in again at all –See P. 73, The Nation on Sunday, February, 2014. However, while Professor Makinde was content with taking only an intellectual view of the Bishop’s convoluted views, I am by far more inclined to see the man’s dirty politics of name-calling. He won’t be the first Bishop in this game since it looks like hiring Bishops –call them Rasputins – by some Southwest politicians has become a fad. The other day, it was Hon Opeyemi Bamidele carrying a nonagenarian retired Bishop on a farewell visit to his erstwhile political leaders, and the reader wins nothing for correctly guessing which Osun politician might have our Bishop on his payroll in the instant case.

Since I had no previous knowledge of Bishop Bamidele, and in order not to be unduly judgmental, I decided to google-search him. The little I found on him was quite instructive. Left to him, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola is the devil itself, and, ipso facto, ill-suited to be the number one citizen in the state of Osun. What pointed, unmistakably, to this was his UTube presentation titled: Light Make Different.

In that short presentation, paganism, which he accuses Aregbesola of encouraging in the state, is presented in the most lurid of terms; it is not only the opposite of light but it is out to kill and destroy. You need not be told that in the Bishop’s thinking, devotees of traditional religion are destined for the hottest part of hell. This, he, therefore, hangs on Aregbesola who, many sensationally allege, is too much of a Muslim, as leading the good people of Osun into. Many readers of this article will be whispering under their breath: ‘touch not my anointed, do my prophet no harm’, but what exactly do you do when an otherwise very articulate Bishop forgets all about comparative religion, a study of which should have enabled him do a helpful comparison of the doctrines and practices of the world’s religions in order to have a deeper understanding of human beliefs and practices regarding the sacred and the divine.

In completely writing off Yoruba traditional religion, a man who many expect to educate and enlighten is busy obfuscating, for what purpose only he knows.

Let me now tell our Bishop how the Yoruba traditional religion is regarded outside our shores even as our ‘men of God’ choose to be more white than the white man. I document below, two eye witness accounts of events that put a lie to the mindset of the Bishop Makinde’s of this world.

The first is by U.S-based Bunmi Fatoye-matory who recently wrote as follows on ekitipanupo:

‘I and my hubby, a scholar of Yoruba religion, are living in Berlin this year. Berlin, Germany, is the last place I expected to find Yoruba religion and culture, but there it is. We found the Orisa temple, called Candomble by the Brazilians in a very nice neighbourhood in Berlin. It was very elegant and inviting just like it is in Brazil. The founder is a Brazilian priest who has lived in Berlin for a long time. We attended the ceremony for Iyansan, known to us at home as Oya. The crowd was mostly white and some few black Germans and Brazilians. There were songs and dances for each Orisa and that night Osun, Iyansan and Ogun came down to possess the initiates. They danced, they spoke and they offered blessings. The crowd in this place was educated, writers, film makers, anthropologists, etc. many of whom are initiated. They paid obeisance to the gods and we all danced. The officials who address the gods all spoke YORUBA. These were not Yoruba people. I later introduced myself to the Pai de Santo, the priest, and he showered me with that special honour and attention given to me as a Yoruba woman and as a person from the home of Osun, Igede. Since then, I have had several requests from the devotees to be taught Yoruba. Writing further, Mrs Fatoye- Matory said: ‘Folks, in the 21st C., Yoruba religion is becoming a World Religion and the torch bearers are not Yoruba people. Either in Cuba, Brazil, or many cities such as Miami, New York, Berlin, Port of Spain and Lisbon, our gods and goddesses are marching on in spite of the desertion by their children, without the advantages of missionaries or The Book. I met two Danish guys who came from Copenhagen to attend the ceremony. They are initiated even though there is no temple in Denmark yet. Yoruba people – obviously the likes of Bishop Makinde – are spreading Abrahamic Religions around the world; some of them are mutilating their names to get

rid of the evidence of their families’ ancestral Orisas. Many refuse to teach Yoruba to their children. Europeans and Latin Americans of all races are thirsting for our gods, language and traditions. Only Eledumare knows where this is going. One bit of hope is the response of Diaspora children. Across U.S. Colleges, many of them are interested in connecting to their roots. They are learning the languages of their ancestors and researching the traditions.’

‘Yes, indeed, my sister’, interjected Professor Akin Oyebode, a Law Professor of international repute: ‘I recall watching the cultural troupe of Cuba in Moscow in 1967 rendering songs to Obatala, Sango and Yemoja in heavily Spanish-adulterated Yoruba but still somewhat understandable to my humble self. In fact, a former Cuban Ambassador once told me that the Yoruba religion and culture were more authentic in Cuba than Nigeria…So, I’m at one with you on the passion of the African Diaspora for their roots.’Now, has it occurred to our Bishop that the Yoruba culture and language are thriving in as far afield as Brazil, Cuba, Portugal, the West Indies –where there is a town called ‘Beokuta, according to our own WS -, even in the United States of America? Does he know that this ensures the indestructibility of the Yoruba language and culture even where, back at home, our elite no longer like to speak the language to their children because it is considered infradig if their 4-year old does not speak English?

Has it occurred to Bishop Bamidele that in an age when the Southwest is fervently preaching fiscal federalism and taking it gingerly to the national conference, only agriculture can dwarf tourism as our main source of revenue in Yoruba land? For purposes of whatever may be coming to some of our churches, if any, from the U.S, must we continue to denigrate that which is ours? Probably unknown to the Bishop, many of our states in the region have poured billions into tourism development and both Osun Osogbo and Ikogosi in Ekiti are already showing what a milch cow tourism could become for us.

And as a passing shot, our reverend gentlemen, not just the Bishop, should either be content with their tithes or remove their cassocks and join partisan politics.

They will be more than welcome.

February 23, 2014
Jonathan, PDP, un-remitted oil money and 2015

Until the letter from the tempestuous Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, got leaked to the press, Nigerians knew absolutely nothing about any unremitted funds

I think it is best to start off this Sunday by congratulating our dear president for finally finding the courage to relieve himself of the burdens both Princess Oduah, former Minister of Aviation, and her colleague, Orubebe, of the Ministry of the Niger Delta, had put on him. Orubebe has severally been accused of corruption, ranging from non-disclosure of some assets in his declaration as well as making spurious claims of paying for some phantom projects. Even the House of Representatives has found some of these weighty enough to order an investigation. It has been suggested, back home in his own Niger Delta, that, under him, the East-West road will remain a pipe dream. None of these meant a thing to the president; rather, while lesser charges were being pursued in Usain Bolt fashion by the anti-graft agencies, Orubebe, protected by the presidency, never came under their radar but remained one of the president’s closest allies. The case of our dear princess, commander of the Jonathan N-2-N campaign of 2011, and her two luxury toys, is too recent and putrefying enough to delay us here. Some smart Alecs are talking of the restoration of some facilities at the airports but I ask, if the prices of the armoured cars were padded, who says Nigerians were not shortchanged in those other major items of expense? What do we know of the process of hiring the contractors; can it pass the test of incorruptibility? However, Nigerians need to be congratulated that, for a season, at least, until the next campaign, these individuals will not daily assault our decency as a people.

The PDP, sleaze masters that they are in that party, has become customary to mastermind some hefty financial heists whenever a major election is in the offing. In 2003, apart from a top gun of the stock exchange corralling some high heeled members to contribute huge sums of money, a sum of N300billion was supposedly voted for roads only for then President Obasanjo to later ask his friend, and Minister of Works, Chief Tony Anenih, where the roads built with that huge sum were located: “where are the roads?” hollered Obasanjo. Nigerians are still waiting for the answer aeon years later. Also, in what they never thought could later ground the country for weeks, the PDP, ahead of the 2011 elections, arranged to siphon huge funds from the petroleum subsidy vote to fund its hugely expensive 2011 campaign.

For that to happen, a former chairman of the party was ensconced as the chairman of the relevant agency and before Nigerians knew what was happening, the list of petrol products importers ballooned to high heavens with companies ostensibly belonging to the children of two former PDP chairmen and other influential members of the party conspicuously on it. You only get the full import of this scheme if you remember that the same government had earlier entered into an import agreement with a company named Trafigura, fined 1 million Euros in Amsterdam in July 2010 for dumping toxic petroleum waste on Cote d’Ivoire killing scores of people. According to Farooq A.Kperogi in his article ‘Biggest Scandal In Oil Subsidy Removal Fraud’, the same Trafigura it was, which the Jonathan government contracted to take 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day in exchange for refined products of equivalent value estimated at around $3 billion a year, whereas a third of that amount could have revived the country’s refineries.

For this government, it matters not if Nigerians have their health compromised as long as they make money to finance the next outlandish campaign. This then was the precursor to the removal of a so-called ‘subsidy’ on petrol which grounded the entire country and did not end until some were lost.

Here we are with the 2015 elections approaching especially at a time the ruling party is gasping for breath having been thoroughly shattered by internal contradictions arising from many years of surviving on impunity, exacerbated by a chairman who threw his weight, needlessly, all over the place, arrogating to himself powers never conferred on him by any party organ.

And lo, and behold, Nigeria is confronted again by about the most stupendous public accounting challenge, being creatively rationalised as legitimate, but certainly, un-appropriated, expenses. Until the letter from the tempestuous Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, got leaked to the press, Nigerians knew absolutely nothing about any unremitted funds. And it would not be until about three months after the letter that the president would now scramble a face-saving meeting of the NNPC, the Ministry of Finance, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the CBN which then narrowed the alleged $49.8 million to between $10billion and $12billion, still leaving at least $2billion unaccounted for.

Sanusi has since come back to say that the actual unremitted amount is $20 million. Deposed Sanusi at a senate hearing: “NNPC shipped $67 billion worth of crude, but what came to the CBN, after all reconciliation, stands at $47 billion. Let us know what happened to the remaining $20 billion.”

If any evidence of high profile duplicity is needed in all these, it is the rather untenable clam of the NNPC Group Managing Director that although the president may have, as far back as the Yar’ Adua presidency, removed subsidy on kerosene, this directive was not passed down to the NNPC. Even if this were correct, since when has ignorance become justification for an illegality and has the legal dictum ‘ignoramus non juris excusat’ been abrogated? Even if these were so, are Nigerians to now understand that no agency of government brought this to the attention of a humongous NNPC? The GMD must tell his stories to the marines because I sincerely believe that he is just being clever by half but you bet, this is the story line they will stick to, come rain, and come shine. Like in the case of the oil subsidy removal, in which some companies claimed that ships which never visited Africa delivered fuel cargoes in Lagos, and were paid subsidy in billions of naira, we are again being taken through the same chicanery and high profile scam.

Unfortunately, it is most unlikely that anything will come out of all the investigation since big money is involved. I therefore align myself with the view that, and I quote a source that should know: ‘It is already looking like the scandal over the unremitted funds will go the way of all scandals – under the carpet since, instead of dealing with the issue, President Jonathan has been doing what his government does best: finding scape-goats and buying time for a bigger scandal to break’. Or why on earth can the president not order an international forensic audit to look at this gargantuan mess once and for all. This is necessary because external economists are in agreement that the figures are just not just adding up. Using official data, analysis by CSL, the stock-broking arm of Nigeria’s First City Merchant Bank, points to a $24.3bn discrepancy in 2012 between the market value of declared production by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and actual remittances to the state. Also, Charles Robertson, lead economist for Renaissance Capital, an investment bank, identifies a persistent monthly gap of $1.5bn and asserted that the $26bn discrepancy from January 2012 to May 2013 would explain Nigeria’s fiscal problems. He noted that figures from the Nigeria Customs, the IMF and from the country’s main trading partners “are gloriously inconsistent”, concluding that over-invoicing imports by the NNPC is a common method to get cash offshore.

If President Jonathan is not complicit in all these, he should order an external forensic audit today.

February 16, 2014