The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • Atiku’s jinxed presidential bid

    Atiku’s jinxed presidential bid

    In a nation with records of ‘delegated’ Prime Minister,  Head of State  imposed through ambush by coup plotters with hidden agenda, president corralled into office despite loud protestation that he did not forget anything in State House, ill-prepared presidents who at the end of their tenure admitted being entrapped by their self-serving captors and a nation that even celebrates an ‘accidental civil servant’, as if bureaucracy has ceased being a  specialized field that requires long years of training and apprenticeship, it is an irony that leadership of Nigeria has continued to elude Atiku Abubakar, who by training, experience, carriage, confidence is eminently qualified  to run the affairs of our nation.

    And it is not as if Atiku, a grassroots mobiliser, generous giver, with friends in high places and among youths he has successfully mentored, has not paid his dues. As a  son “of an itinerant trader who travelled from one market to another selling imitation jewellery, caps, needles, potash, kola nuts and other nick-knacks…” who unfortunately passed on while he was just starting school, Atiku’s life has been  a lesson in hard work, determination  and courage. All those who have worked closely with him play glowing tributes to his humanity.

    His bid for leadership however seemed to be jinxed since 1990 when he first lost his bid to be governor of Gongola State and in 1991, when his SDP ticket for the governorship of Adamawa State was annulled. In 1993, he had stepped down as SDP candidate for MKO Abiola with an eye on the vice president’s slot. He however lost out to Babagana Kingibe and SDP governors without whose support, MKO’s 1993 pan-Nigeria mandate would have been impossible. In 1999, he traded his hard-earned governorship victory of Adamawa for Obasanjo’s vice president with the hope of succeeding him in 2003 or 2007. In the pursuit of his ambition, he had stepped on the toes of an unforgiving Obasanjo, who not only drove him out of his official residence and out of PDP but foreclosed Atiku ever becoming Nigeria’s president.

    In 2007, Obasanjo, a shrewd politician, played Umaru Yar’Adua, Shehu Yar’Adua’s younger brother against Atiku, the rightful inheritor of Shehu Yar’Adua’s Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), a platform Atiku had made available to Obasanjo who had no political base having been rejected by his own Yoruba people in 1988.  Atiku took refuge in Tinubu’s AC in 2007. Both he and Buhari were however rigged out by Obasanjo and Maurice Iwu in the most scandalously rigged election in our nation‘s history where even the declared victor questioned his own victory.   Atiku, against all odds, crawled back to PDP where he lost against Goodluck Jonathan, Obasanjo’s adopted godson in the 2011 PDP primary despite his adoption as northern candidate by powerful northern PDP leaders. Jonathan’s decision to contest the 2014 presidential race against his gentleman agreement to do one term drove Atiku and his supporters to the embrace of APC then at a gestation stage. Here again, he lost to Muhammadu Buhari in a keenly contested APC primary of 2014.

    Last week, Atiku again crawled back to PDP with Jonathan’s degrading precondition that he first beg Obasanjo who is no longer a member of PDP. With the takeover of the PDP by Ayo Fayose and Nyesom Wike, two controversial politicians for whom the end justifies the means, the fulfilment of Jonathan’s humiliating condition does not seem sufficient guarantee for securing PDP 2019 ticket.  If Atiku survives the road blocks already erected by these two spiteful politicians, he will then start erasing scars the PDP left behind after 16 years of mindless looting. It will be his lot to defend the defunct CAN’s charges that “PDP turned Nigeria into a borderless land of unending misery, ethnic warfare, insecurity and torture”; allowed for the “takeover of the country by sundry armed gangs, killers of all sorts, suicide bombers who have brought Nigeria to the level of strife-torn Somalia”; made the country a morgue of decayed and obsolete infrastructures”.

    After crossing this hurdle, Nigerians have to be told how the new PDP, controlled by those who freely set thugs and armed militants after political rivals  will improve on the baleful legacies of  Babangida, Jerry Gana and Bode George’s old PDP.

    It cannot also be good news for Atiku that Buhari is likely going to secure the APC ticket to run in 2019 if he asks for it. Buhari has in spite of his initial health challenges, his government initial lethargy and insufficient support from his timid APC that is yet to appreciate that a political party is like a cult organisation that has no place for deviants, delivered on his core promises viz, anti-corruption war, revitalising the economy and ending insecurity in the north-eastern part of the country.

    In spite of sabotage by some corrupt members of our National Assembly and a few bad eggs in the judiciary, Buhari’s anti-corruption war is on course. Stealing is now corruption and as Magu, the acting chairman of EFCC observed a few days ago, ‘the days of impunity are gone’. Nigerians are today united against corruption to guarantee sustainable development peace and security.

    Recession has effectively come to an end in spite of antics of IMF and World Bank foot-soldiers in Nigeria and other prophets of doom that predicted Nigerian recession would drag on for years. Not many economies have been known to survive a recession in one year.  Buhari’s greatest success by far is in his battle against Boko Haram insurgents. Life is gradually returning to the north-east devastated by Boko Haram’s mindless killing of innocent Nigerians. Buhari’s success in routing Boko Haram out of Nigeria has been hailed by world leaders. Only last Sunday, Fareed Zakaria in his popular GPS Sunday programme quoted the latest report of Global Terrorism Index indicating terrorism in Nigeria has decreased by unprecedented 80% in two years compared to 40% in Iraq, 24% in Syria, 14 % in Afghanistan and 12% in Pakistan.

    Above all, the integrity of Buhari, who Atiku will have to square up with if he secures the PDP ticket, remains unassailable. He therefore remains a formidable opponent to Atiku who has spent a great deal of time defending his own integrity.

    Atiku’s first campaign outing last week was a disaster. His attack on Buhari’s record on job creation opens him to counter attack. By claiming that Nigeria lost three million jobs in two years will lead to how his mismanagement of the privatization process cost Nigeria the loss of World Bank projected seven million jobs.

    Year 2019, is increasingly becoming dicey for Atiku.  If he loses once again, it will not be as a result of lack trying or inadequate preparation. The fault will be in his stars. Ahmadu Bello who never prepared for leadership of the country got it on a platter of gold and gave it to Tafawa Balewa, a non-Fulani minority from southern Bauchi whose grandmother had called for the killing of all Fulani that failed to vacate their land. On the other hand, there was also the Great Zik of Africa, who first studied politics as a science and practiced it as an art in preparation for Nigerian leadership. There was also Awo (the best President Nigeria never had) who spent all his nights when his contemporaries were carousing, studying Nigerian problems and proffering solutions. Nigeria’s leadership eluded both. Atiku should be happy to be in good company of these eminent and great forebears.

  • PDP’s missed opportunity

    PDP’s missed opportunity

    The fierce battle for the soul of PDP comes up at its crucial convention in two days-time. The battle line has been drawn between self- proclaiming founding fathers of the party made up of veterans of coup d’états such as Ibrahim Babangida, Aliyu Gusau and David Mark and PDP’s serving governors coordinated by Nyesom Wike and Ayo Fayose. There are other marginal interests made up of ex- PDP governors, opportunists and a presidential aspirant like Abubakar Atiku for whom ruling Nigeria has become an obsession.

    PDP, formed in 1998 has in 18 years produced 14 chairmen through a deadly game of dog eat dog. The battle became vicious under Jonathan when in an effort to undermine the PDP zoning policy to pave way for his emergence as presidential candidate in 2011, the party produced five chairmen in quick succession: Vincent Ogbulafor (2008), Okwesilieze Nwodo (2010), Haliru Belloý Mohammed (2011), Kawu Barajeý (2011), Bamanga Tukur (2012), Adamu Mu’azu 2014). The battle for the PDP’s plum job did not get any less ferocious even with the defeat of the party in 2015. If anything, it got more vicious with the imposition of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, a total outsider whose name was not on the north-east list for the plum job by Wike and Fayose.

    Either in victory or in defeat, PDP has always been at war with itself. For instance, disagreement over sharing of spoils of office after the party’s 1999 victory was followed by assassination of party members and opponents including Ahmad Sardauna Ahman Pategi, Janet Oladapo, Victor Nwakwo, Marshal Harry, Bola Ige, Aminasoari Dikibo,, Funsho Williams, Ayo Daramola, Theodore Agwatu and Andrew Agom among many others whose killings till today remain a riddle.

    What is not a puzzle however are the reasons for the war of attrition and brutal killings. Unlike political parties that serve as recruitment centres for political offices and as modernisaton agents in developed democracies, PDP is an association of ‘wheelers and dealers with no identifiable ideological world-view or a coherent manifesto’. John Campbell, a former US envoy to Nigeria during a debate on Nigeria in the British House of Commons a few years back described PDP as ‘an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria, a political party that came together … essentially as a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils.’

    If anyone is in doubt, PDP and its members provided sufficient empirical evidence to validate Campbell’s thesis. For instance, Babangida who a few days ago proclaimed himself a founding father of PDP is widely believed to have institutionalized corruption in Nigeria. In fact President Buhari recently claimed his regime was toppled in 1985 by Babangida, Gusau and Abacha for insisting that one of the three involved in import licence scandal be brought to book.

    Another PDP founding father is former vice president, Atiku Abubakar. Both President Buhari and ex-President Obasanjo recently argued that Atiku’s refusal to visit America may not be unconnected with his association with corrupt and jailed US lawmaker – William Jefferson. (Atiku however attributed his inability to visit the US to repeated denials of US visa by US authorities). At home, Atiku Abubakar is haunted by his role in the ill-implemented Nigerian privatization policy, an exercise roundly condemned by a House of Representative probe.

    If further evidence is needed to consolidate Campbell’s otherwise unassailable position, we also have it on record that 17 of the 24 governors elected on the platform of PDP in 2003 were charged to court for corruption by EFCC. We can also add how desperate PDP stalwarts first created artificial fuel scarcity before stampeding President Obasanjo to  set up the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), an instrument used by PDP stalwarts and their siblings to defraud the country to the tune of N1.6 trillion under the fraudulent fuel subsidy scam.

    And a critical look at the PDP candidates and their god- fathers for the Saturday battle presents no less depressing outlook. Uche Secondus is a leading contender. At a period when most part of Borno State, including military barracks,  were overran as a result Boko Haram’s superior fire power, Secondus was part of PDP leadership that allegedly converted $2.1 loan meant to cover military hardware and welfare of soldiers to war-chests for the purpose of 2015 election.   Secondus recently admitted he was drafted by Fayose who according to EFCC and Musliu Obanikoro, received N3billion out of the $2.1billion military hardware loans as war chest to fight the Ekiti State gubernatorial battle. His other sponsor, Wike along with his other South-south supporters have sworn ‘to fight to the death’ on Saturday.

    Also gunning for the plum job is High Chief Dokpesi, a successful business man and media mogul. He admitted collecting N2.1b from Dasuki, ex-President Jonathan’s NSA but insisted it was payment for media publicity and special duties carried out on behalf of President Jonathan.

    Also set for the battle is Gbenga Daniel who as Ogun State governor, locked up the state House of Assembly chambers and ruled as a sole administrator after chasing the state lawmakers out of town. Besides his battle with EFCC, Daniel will also be remembered for carrying ex-President Jonathan on his back on a campaign trail around Ogun State, commissioning uncompleted  or yet to take-off projects.

    Another serious contender for the PDP plum job is Chief Bode George. He was part of Babangida’s South-west military administrators that in the guise of liberalization, sold off some Yoruba national patrimony including the Ikeja Cocoa industries at less than the cost of land on which the industry was built.

    Another serious contender for the plum job is Professor Tunde Adeniran who as an accomplished intellectual had attempted albeit unsuccessfully to set an agenda for standard of behaviour for his fellow PDP contestants. Unfortunately his godfather, Babangida has never been known to do anything for Nigeria out of altruism. He destroyed our budding industries and turned our nation to net importer of the labour of other societies. He took the nation through a ‘transition without end’ for eight years only to annul the results of the most credible free election in our nation’s history.

    Since it has been established that PDP as an association of wheelers and dealers cannot pass for a political party, Saturday’s convention would have been an opportunity for its stakeholders to reinvent the party by giving way to youths not tarred by PDP 16 years of mindless looting of the nation’s resources. Unfortunately, Saturday’s vicious battle will end the way of all past PDP’s deadly battles: as a family affair if a consensus is reached on equitable sharing of spoils of war or as vicious foes set on a war of attrition with itself. The losers  as usual will be Nigerians especially those that had hoped PDP will reinvent itself as a viable alternative to wobbling APC and President Buhari who two and half years into his administration, still depends on PDP appointees to manage some of the over 500 small governments he needed for effective governance.

  • Malami, ‘Mainagate’ and Buhari’s integrity

    Malami, ‘Mainagate’ and Buhari’s integrity

    Integrity is President Buhari’s most priceless asset. This has unfortunately come under serious threat in recent times with macabre dance among arms of state security services and the embarrassing role of Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice in the unfolding ‘Mainagate’. The President has maintained a dignified silence. And if the public was expecting the president to use the big stick against members of his kitchen cabinet engaged in a turf war capable of denting his image, what they got was loud silence.

    Of course we are now very familiar with the president’s style. He keeps his head when others are losing theirs. It must also be conceded to the president that as a leader that has experienced pains of defeat and suffered pangs of sorrow following betrayal by those who swear by his name during the day and engage in palace coup in a night of long knives. He understands Nigeria and Nigerians.

    As a defeated ANPP presidential candidate in 2003 and 2007, his vice presidential candidates and party chairmen were the first to abandon him while he battled PDP election riggers in courts. As a victorious APC president-elect in 2015, Saraki, Dogara with the active support of Atiku Abubakar, their godfather who crawled back to PDP last week, traded off his victory to the opposition.

    As he valiantly battled inherited decayed infrastructure and economy in recession, those who brought the nation to its knees recommended devaluation of naira in an import-dependent economy, wrote-off his minister of finance as incompetent, and canvassed for a reconstitution of an economic team to tackle the economic crisis.  Suddenly, those we all know as lawyers and human right social crusaders were on television predicting a long-drawn recession while accusing Buhari of harming the banks with the implementation of a policy that hitherto allowed banks to hold on to government funds which they give back to government as loans with high interest rate.

    And perhaps because against predictions of prophets of doom, recession ended within a year and Treasury Single Account has liberated government from being held hostage by banks that sit on government funds which they give back to government as loans with interest, Buhari has come to believe his ‘suru-lere’ (virtue in waiting patiently without doing anything) can be a substitute for governance.

    I think Nigerians want their elected government to govern. They want the president to start by first putting his own house in order.

    First, most Nigerians have come to regard the minister of justice as an embarrassment to Buhari’s government. Junaid Mohammed, who holds no hostages, describes him as “Kano charge-and-bail lawyer’. He insinuated that Malami probably has a secret agenda for embarking on an alleged ‘trip to London for a secret meeting with a fugitive minister’ and for attempting ‘through some subterranean connection to quash the fine imposed on MTN by the government regulator, the National Communications Commission”.

    If there is one area where Junaid sees eye to eye with Buhari’s government, it is on Magu’s competence and integrity in prosecuting the president’s anti-corruption war. Of Magu, he says “I believe from my heart of heart that the Economic Financial and Crimes Commission (EFCC) is doing an excellent job”. Unfortunately, this is one organisation Malami and the DSS seems not to have confidence in.

    For instance, while testifying before Senator Emmanuel Paulker’s committee last week, Malami alleged “Nigerians were “blind folded” from getting answers to: What happened to the monies recovered from the syndicate?  What about the 270 properties comprising of real estate and motor vehicles one of which is a mansion worth N1 billion situated at No 42 Gang Street Maitama Abuja allegedly given to a senior lawyer meant to crave for his “buy in” in maximizing media hype aimed at distracting the attention at the public pension fraud?”

    Concluding he said “These properties are under the custody of the EFCC. The properties as we speak have been shared among top officials of the commission, friends and family members, including lawyers of the agency.”

    He made similar allegation before the Aliyu Madaki-led House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigative hearing on the disappearance, reinstatement and promotion of Maina.

    But denying all, EFCC has said “All the pension fraud assets that are in the recovered assets inventory of the commission were products of independent investigation by the EFCC, for which Maina and his cohorts had no clues. If Maina or any government official witnessed the sharing of any recovered pension assets by any official of the EFCC, they should be willing to name the official, the assets involved; when and where the ‘sharing’ took place”. And hitting Malami below the belt, it says “However, in view of the consistent display of public ignorance about the profile of recovered assets by even those who should know, it is important to state that it is impossible for anybody to share a property that is subject of interim forfeiture by court.”

    Femi Falana (SAN), respected human right crusader has also accused Malami of mischief claiming Malami was trying to malign his name for “joining other well-meaning Nigerians in calling on President Mohammadu Buhari to sanction the members of his administration who had exposed the nation to ridicule”. ‘Contrary to Mr. Malami’s claim, I never bought any property from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)’, he insisted.

    While the president by his own inaction is providing ammunition to the opposition for the 2019 battle which they will likely lose on account of their baleful legacies even if Buhari contests on a wheelchair, there are however some begging questions that have to be answered before then. “The reinstatement of Maina’’ according to Malami “was done with no strings attached, based on court processes and the fact that none of the parties exercised their rights of appeal. I acted in the best interest of Nigeria, not on any individual’s interest”. How come the minister of justice was more interested in reinstating a wanted fugitive than how a wanted fugitive secured a court judgment?

    Malami claimed he got clearance from security agencies and National Security Adviser Babagana Monguno before his meeting that was arranged through a third party with Maina in Dubai, United Arab Emirate (UAE) where he was availed of further information on recovery drive and individuals involved. Again borrowing from Junaid Mohammed’s probing questions: In what capacity did Malami undertake this trip? Did he at the end of the suspicious trip avail EFCC, an agency he supervises and other security agencies of his findings that “pension fraud was beyond Maina, adding that a syndicate that cuts across all sectors, including serving and retired public officers, including members of the National Assembly, was involved in cornering N3.7b monthly from pension funds.’

    If he got the information that “there were over 116,000 ghost workers responsible for N829m monthly spread across 29 bank accounts”, apparently from Maina the culprit now trying to play the victim, why did he not pass the information to the appropriate body equipped to investigate instead of directing “his office to begin investigation into the pension fraud in some key Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA)”? And if as he said that ‘Maina was part of the syndicate until things fell apart between them’, how does his reinstatement become ‘the larger interest of Nigerians’?

    Both the Head of Civil Service of the Federation (HoCSF) Winifred Eyo-Ita and the acting Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Joseph Oluremi confirmed citing the AGF letter requesting Maina to be reinstated, is Malami now the government? His actions seem to fuel the fears expressed by the president’s wife about those trying to hijack her husband’s government several months back.

  • Yerima and his many detractors

    Ahmed Sani Yerima who before joining politics in 1988, had a successful career in both Sokoto and Zanfara states civil service where he rose to become the Director of Budget in the Ministry of Finance, and Director-General of Lands and Housing and later Permanent Secretary at different times has been at the receiving end of all types of diatribes especially in the social media since he successfully launched Sharia courts as a governor in 2002. He is derisively referred to by his political detractors as ‘Sharia advocate’, ‘child abuser’ and an ‘extremist who uses religion to serve his own purpose”. He has denied all the charges insisting he is a moderate.

    There can be no greater evidence that his people have no problem with him and his ‘sharia’ than the fact that they did not only reelect him governor in 2003, but went on to elect him senator representing the Zamfara West Senatorial seat in 2007 and 2011 on the platform of ANPP and in 2015 on the platform of APC.

    But critics who weep louder than the bereaved hardly see anything good in Senator Yerima. When his son got married few months back, the focus of the media was on the shoe worn by the bride which they claimed was sourced from ‘Ralph & Russo’ at a cost of $2,150 (N784, 750). Yet leading members of ruling APC have been arranging intra-cultural and cross-cultural marriages for their siblings within and outside the country without any one telling us the cost of the shoe worn by their brides.

    Yerima’s recent declaration of his readiness to fly the APC presidential flag in 2019 is going to be another source of nightmare for his political detractors.  After seconding the failed motion by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of APC for the president to run for the 2019 election, he has declared that while he “will support the President if he decides to run in 2019, nobody will blame him if he decides to come out if the president does not contest”. His decision not to contest against the president however cannot be a sign of weakness as Yerima trounced President Buhari when they both contested in the ANPP presidential primaries in 2007 before deciding to step down.

    Yerima however has no regret for his sharia advocacy. In an interview with the BBC at the height of the sharia controversy, he had insisted that because “Islam is a faith, no non-Muslim had the right to determine sharia’s legitimacy and  punishments  which included stoning, amputation and flogging which were legal under the constitution”.  Since Zamfara people have no problem with sharia as indicated above, if there were social dislocation elsewhere among the 12 other Sunni-dominant Islam northern states including Kano where over a hundred people lost their lives to anti-sharia protests and Kaduna where scores also died, Yerima cannot be sanctioned for the inadequacies of governors who jumped into the ‘Sharia band-wagon’ when it was obvious they were not in total control of their states.

    Besides the support of his own people, an important variable in participatory democracy, Yerima also had the constitutional backing. His critics who challenged him in court, all lost. All that the Justice Minister, Kanu Agabi  could do was to send an appeal letter to northern states pleading that Muslims should not be subjected to more severe punishments than other Nigerians.  As for President Obasanjo, his hands were tied not just by Yerima’s judicial victory but by his lack of political base having been rejected by his Yoruba people where he lost even in his ward’s election but overwhelmingly voted into power by the 12 northern states. His tame response even  as Nigeria became a centre of world attention following Safiya Husseini’s conviction for adultery and sentenced to death by stoning by an Islamic court for being impregnated by a man who she said promised to marry her but later changed his mind  was ‘Yerima’s political sharia will soon fizzle away’.

    Unfortunately, Ahmed Sani Yerima is currently standing trial for allegedly mismanaging N464, 820,189.24 out of N1billion loan meant for the repair of Gusau Dam in 2006. The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has already tendered 25 exhibits and called six witnesses against him for charges which among others, include giving N20m to INEC; sponsorship of government officials to Hajj; donations on behalf of his state; Ramadan feeding; school feeding; purchase of 200 motorcycles; purchase of four Peugeot vehicles and settlement of leave grants to teachers.

    But Yerima’s supporters who are ready to openly identify with his advocacy of a gender discriminatory judicial system that punishes women victims of predatory males are nonetheless asking to be shown one ex-governor who has not at one time or the other tried to influence INEC officials through what ex-governor Donald Duke of Cross Rivers described as logistics to help INEC officials who often had their allocation slashed or confiscated by government officials and party stalwarts. They also want to know if there is anyone in Nigeria who does not know that state pilgrim boards did not survive Awo, its initiator.  Governors, both military and civilians have come to regard them as source of patronage to party officials, relatives and girlfriends. It is on record that Saudi Arabia not too long ago came up with a policy that forecloses entry of unaccompanied underage Nigerian girls into Saudi Arabia.

    They also want to know when donations to all sorts of causes ranging from marriage of celebrities, setting up of newspapers and television stations by buddies which became a fad widely criticized by the London Economist magazine during Babangida era have become a crime. Yerima is by no means the most generous giver among his fellow former governors-turned senators.

    They are also wondering why anyone would expect Yerima to dig his political grave by deviating from a long entrenched practice of feeding government children during Ramadan with government funds. They have also reminded those who pretend not to remember that it was not too long ago that procuring second-hand motorcycles in their hundreds and ferrying same along with jobless northern youths to Lagos became northern governors’ answer to PDP mass unemployment policy.

    And how can diversion of money by governor to pay civil servants and teachers’ allowances become a crime? Could they have suddenly forgotten that the late Admiral Augustus Aikhomu as Babangida’s deputy settled that issue a long time ago when he chastised journalists for misleading the public by referring to what their government regarded as misapplication of government funds as misappropriation of government funds?

    Finally let me reassure Senator Yerima that not all of us suffer from collective amnesia. If he by chance emerges as his party’s presidential flag bearer in 2019, we will, God willing, call attention of voters to some of his northern ex-governors who sponsored some of their youths to acquire training and receive indoctrination under Bin Laden while taking political refuge in Sudan.

  • Balance of terror in Rivers

    Chibuike Amaechi and Nyesom Wike are two of a kind. They both belong to Ikwere Igbo sub ethnic group of oil-rich Rivers State of Niger Delta. Both suffer from a ‘sense of entitlement’ syndrome, a common affliction among youths of this oil-rich area that remains underdeveloped despite accounting for 80% of the resources freely deployed by a dysfunctional centre to develop other areas.  As products of an environment where ‘self-help’, a euphemism for anarchy  has unfortunately come to be seen as an acceptable prevailing culture, it is no surprise both do not regard their periodic unleashing of their thugs and militants on hapless people of Rivers as a national embarrassment  and a disservice to high offices they hold.

    Amaechi first tried the self-help option to consolidate his judicial victory with moral victory over Obasanjo who wanted to play god by unilaterally disqualifying him after winning the River’s PDP governorship primary election in order to accommodate his favourite. All he did back then to win the sympathy of his people was to portray himself as a victim of an overbearing representative of dominant ethnic group. However, by the time President Jonathan was attempting to undermine his candidacy in a governors forum election, self-help strategy for him, had become an art. This time around, all he did was to identify with opposition’s grievances over government handling of the Sovereign Wealth Fund, the mismanagement of the Excess Crude Account and PDP fuel subsidy’s N1.6t fraud. He went on to defeat President Jonathan’s candidate, Jonah Jang of Plateau State by 19 to 16. Jonathan’s attempt to portray him as enemy of South- south to which they both belong for refusing to endorse him for a second term only earned him a bruised nose as Amaechi’s shrill cry and lamentation became “They have taken our oil wells from Etche; they have taken our oil wells from Kalabari; they have taken our oil wells from Andoni and they are battling to take over those in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni. We are losing our oil wells every day; if I speak, they will say that I am stubborn, but we have to defend our rights; part of the problems we are facing now is that we are fighting to protect our oil wells.”

    When five members of Rivers House of Assembly swearing in the name of their messiah, Patience Jonathan, the President’s wife, purportedly impeached the House Speaker supported by the majority of members with the connivance of the police, Amaechi, now a veteran of self-help tactics, invaded the house with his own thugs and policemen. He personally took charge not only to rescue his loyalist lawmakers but to teach the five lawmakers that they did not have a monopoly of violence. Okey Chinda, leader of the five lawmakers loyal to Mrs. Jonathan had his head battered with the maze and had to be flown abroad by PDP for medical treatment.

    President Jonathan was also no stranger to self-help tactics. When Rivers State House of Assembly, with little encouragement from Amaechi suspended the chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area which had become Wike’s recruiting base for thugs in readiness for the 2015 election, Jonathan responded by directing Joseph Mbu of Rivers State Police command to illegally take over the LGA, an action described by Dakuku Peterside, a federal legislator from the area at the time as ‘the height of lawlessness which each day moves us closer to anarchy’.

    The experiences Wike garnered as Amaechi’s faithful ally, trusted Chief of Staff and chief enforcer of his self-help tactics before politics threw them asunder came handy during his 2014 gubernatorial battle. By demonizing Buhari and APC as northern parasites trying to steal the resources of South-south, he was able to whip up such sentiments that some of his supporters were prepared to shed their blood. Wike has continued to hold on to power backed by a Supreme Court verdict and a threat to visit more violence on his opponents with his thugs and militants in the event of another re-run election.

    Amaechi and Wike’s last week clash in public was but a display of balance of terror by two friends turned arch-enemies. It will be recalled Wike as minister for education never skipped a weekend without being in Port-Harcourt to mobilise his thugs and militants for the 2014/15 election even at a period when the ministry he was supervising was in disarray with all federal universities and polytechnics on a strike which in the case of the polytechnics dragged on for close to a year

    It is not difficult to see the obvious parallel between Amaechi’s last week trip to Port Harcourt and those of Wike as minister of education. Amaechi came fully prepared. It was as if he was going to war. According to Wike’s spokesperson, Simeon Nwakaudu, who claimed his principal was attacked while on project inspection at Nwanja Junction on Trans-Amadi Road, Port Harcourt., “the Minister of Transportation had over 50 SARS personnel, soldiers and mobile policemen in his motorcade.”  He further alleged it was “the SARS personnel and soldiers in the minister’s convoy that knocked down the governor’s escort rider and attacked the policemen in the pilot car”. He did not however say how this translated to an attack on Governor Wike who did not arrive the scene until about 10 minutes later.

    On his part, the minister  claimed in a statement, that while being “accompanied  by cars of many of his supporters, the minister’s black jeep was intercepted and blocked at the junction by the security motorcycle outrider attached to Wike after two cars had passed through. Suddenly, gun-toting security men attached to Wike’s convoy surrounded the minister’s car, threatening to shoot”.

    The question to ask Amaechi is what he was doing in Port Harcourt with 50 SARS and a bullet-proof SUV and accompanied by several cars of his supporters if he was on a peaceful mission and not on a show of force. It will not be out of place to conclude that at a time Amaechi was expected to be working as a minister of transport, he was engaged in juvenile show of force probably to raise the morale of his thugs and militants just like Wike, his estranged ally did as minister of education.

    Beyond the assault on our sensibilities by merchants of violence and patrons of thugs and militants, our greatest tragedy is that Nigerians had expected from President Buhari and his APC, an end to the monumental wastes that defined the Jonathan era. Instead, we are daily assailed and assaulted by governors and ministers’ convoys of over a dozen expensive cars with lorry loads of security personnel, all at taxpayers’ expense. It is more tragic that these office holders and public servants are wasting resources at a time many states owe unpaid arrears of workers’ salaries.

    Leaders who consider themselves as legitimate representatives of their people have no need to run away from those they are elected or appointed to serve if they have nothing to hide. Most members of our current political class are too young to know we once had an organised society when our leaders like those of developed societies of Europe, take buses, drive their own cars and lived among those they served unlike today when what defines leadership of small sub ethnic group like Ikwere of Rivers State is balance of terror.

  • Battle to revive the economy

    We are winning the battle to revive the economy. We are fighting corruption like never before. We are tackling insecurity with renewed vigour. The bottom line is that as things continue to improve, Nigerians will begin to feel the impact in their daily lives.” – Lai Mohammed.

    It is just as well Lai Mohammed admitted that the battle to revive the economy is an ongoing enterprise. It is far from being won. He was honourable enough to also admit Nigerians are yet to feel the impact of government activities on their daily lives. But since ‘hope rises eternal in the human breast’, one can safely conclude that his, is a message of hope to his fellow compatriots, 70% of whom live below $1.3 a day as a result of betrayal by our successive leaders.

    This however is not to say that Buhari administration has not made some giant strides. We have seen evidence of this in the reduced threat to the territorial integrity of our nation and in the drive towards food sufficiency for our people. There is therefore no doubt as the minister rightly observed that “discerning and well-meaning Nigerians cannot but appreciate and encourage some of the good works of Buhari’s administration” against the backdrop of obstacles mounted on his path by his APC-dominated self-serving National Assembly, his warring kitchen cabinet members and his PDP detractors who see nepotism, selective anti-corruption crusade and drive to Islamise Nigeria in every policy thrust of his government.

    But I think the minister must not be allowed to get away with the wrong impression that it is only “the naysayers who engaged in past- time of acting as distraction” that are dissatisfied with Buhari and his APC government of change. Nigerians that invested so much in Buhari’s government of change want him not only to fulfil his promises on such issues as restructuring not only as an answer to our crisis of nationhood, but also as a response to periodic invasion of our villages by Fulani herdsmen and our urban centres by kidnappers and lawless street traders and restive groups canvassing for fiscal federalism.

    It is understandable if the minister is unrestrained in his celebration of what he perceived as the success of the Buhari administration’s anti-corruption crusade. The irony however is that what the government has been doing in the last two years is to attack the symptoms rather than the real cause of corruption which is the dysfunctional federal government that controls virtually everything including ‘residual powers’, the defining feature of a federal arrangement. What the Buhari administration has done in the name of fighting corruption therefore is running after common thieves who stole government funds. Paradoxically, ex-President Jonathan has said “stealing government funds is not corruption”. We may not agree with Goodluck Jonathan, but the truth of the matter is that common thieves, the targets of Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade, are not the source of our nightmare but the all-powerful dysfunctional federal centre.

    It was the might of a dysfunctional centre that General Babangida who called himself the evil genius exploited to set up the Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation (TCPC) with a decree in 1988.  Babangida thereafter went on to dispose off the following national assets: Assurance Bank, African Petroleum, Unipetrol, National Oil and Chemical Co. Plc, West African Portland Cement, Ashaka Cement, Northern Nigeria Cement, Nigeria Cement company,    Festac 1977 Hotel,   Nigerdock, Niger Insurance, Nigeria Re-insurance, Savannah Sugar, National Trucks Manufacturing, Electricity  Meter Company, Zaria, Hamdala Hotel and Federal Palace hotel  among many others.

    Similarly, Obasanjo who always like to play god hid under the might of the same dysfunctional centre to foist his 1999 Public Enterprises Privatisation and Commercialisation Act on the country in spite of opposition by many well informed Nigerians. Waving  aside opposition, his administration went on to sell off the following national assets: Delta Steel Company valued at $1.5 billion for $30m; NICON Insurance worth N6b but allegedly bought with fake MoU and fake cheques, Ajaokuta Steel Company valued at $1.5 billion but sold for $30 million, ALSCON valued at $3.2b but sold for $130m, Nigeria Re-Insurance Corp. worth N50b but sold for N1.5b (see Adamu Adamu: “BPE: Behind Closed doors”(Daily Trust,  August 12, 2011).

    The Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) that probed the sales of federal government houses was also told of how a German firm, Hans Grenmly bought the Abuja Sheraton Hotel and Towers built at a whopping $300m in 1986 for a paltry $34m” and how “Sofitel Hotel (NICON Luxury Hotels) built with a German loan Of $139m in 1990 was bought by the federal government which it later sold off for $50m. (This Day, April 23 2008).

    Obasanjo’s monetisation policy finally paved the way for converting all GRAs in the country to private use by members of the ruling elite and the confiscation of Abuja houses including lawmakers’ residential quarters, Senate President’s mansion and other principal officers’ residential buildings, built with taxpayers’ money by bureaucrats, lawmakers and their fronts.

    As against manufacturing, most of those who confiscated our national assets embarked on asset stripping. They found it more profitable to import the labour of other societies while our own qualified children roam the streets. The PDP crooks who hijacked the dysfunctional centre introduced self- serving policies such as reduction of tariffs on imported finished products while increasing tariffs on raw materials to frustrate companies like Michelin and Dunlop out of the country. They gave themselves import tax waivers on luxury items such as state-of-the-art SUVs and bullet proof cars. Fake and substandard products continued to flood our markets in spite of billions of naira budgeted annually by our dysfunctional centre to protect our monitor our borders and protect our markets.

    The above acts of banditry by those who did not understand the policy thrust of our founding fathers that set up the industries and established the GRAs  rather than mere stealing of government funds by common thieves under Goodluck Jonathan, is responsible for massive unemployment, grinding poverty and  deaths from fake drugs and substandard vehicle parts at home and in the desert and on the Atlantic Ocean of thousands of Nigerian youths seeking greener pastures in Europe to escape grinding poverty at home.

    Nigerians believe President Buhari, like Vladimir Putin of Russia is uniquely favoured by history to address the source of our nightmare. Like Putin, Buhari enjoys the goodwill of many Nigerians. And like Putin, he has the strength of character to take on those who have continued to impoverish Nigerians after paying a paltry $1.6 to confiscate assets acquired according to El Rufai, the former BPE helmsman, between 1970 and 2008 at a cost of over $100b.

    If President Buhari in his current battle of reviving the economy, lacks the political will to adopt the Putin paradigm which forced those who, like our ruling class, confiscated Russian assets to cede the same back to the state, he can try the Obama option of spending state funds to keep sick companies afloat in order to create employment and encourage consumption. What we lose, we gain not only through employment of our youths, safety  of our motorists but also savings from billions our dysfunctional centre and the activities of federal institutions that have proved ineffective in protecting our country from influx of substandard goods.

  • Buhari and his men

    Nigerians, as Femi Adesina, the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity rightly observed during a Channels Television programme Monday evening, ‘love and trust the President’. Although goodwill is considered a scarce commodity, there is no shortage of goodwill from Nigerians. This is without prejudice to the President’s limitations. Nigerians who are passionate about our country believe that the nation after 16 years of PDP’s mindless looting in place of governance, needed 73 years old Buhari, reputed for his zero-tolerance for corruption and they have not been disappointed.

    Who but Buhari  could have taken on our thieving Generals in the ‘Nigerian Army of anything is possible’ who diverted billions of funds meant for troops welfare and procurement of military hardware to buying properties for self and family members while Boko Haran overran military barracks and took control of over two third of Borno State; disgraced errant elders who confessed to receiving bribes from ex-President Jonathan’s NSA, challenged First Lady who attributed billions of naira  found in her account to gift from her husband’s well-wishers and inheritance from her petty-trader late mum and who but Buhari could have dared the Nigerian judiciary where not a few judges and senior members of the bar pursue not the end of justice but their private pockets?

    But unlike President Obasanjo who effortlessly makes friends among Nigerians and actors in the international community and regards himself as intellectual by not just surrounding himself with intellectuals but also by going to obtain a PhD in Theology from National Open University of Nigeria, President Buhari hardly moves out of his comfort zone and from the circle of close friends and relatives.  It is on account of this he has continued to be haunted by what some Nigerians, including Dr. Junaid, Mohammed, a radical Second Republic member of the Lower House, sees as ‘nepotism and cronyism’. It is this weakness that has been exploited by his trusted aides who after caging and shielding him from those who could look him on the face and ask questions embarked on a war of attrition to outwit each other. If we needed proof of betrayal by his warring aides, the  Babachir Lawal tragedy and the Abdulrasheed Maina’s disaster provided that.

    When the Senate Ad- hoc Committee report that recommended the sack and prosecution of Babachir Lawal first got to the president, he had no difficulty choosing between Lawal, who like Caesars wife, he had expected to be beyond reproach and the eighth Senate perceived by many as house of deals where senators pay themselves scandalously high salaries with over a dozen of their member facing EFCC corruption charges. Besides the president, most Nigerians saw the action of the Senate that was at dagger drawn with Lawal over constituency projects as corruption fighting back.

    But as Adesina has pointed out, the President ‘did not give Lawal a clean bill of health’ but sought the help of one of his two warring groups. The rival group to which Magu belongs which is better placed to give unbiased advice was shut out. This also played out in the case of Abdulrasheed Maina who was smuggled back to office with EFCC 14 charges of corruption still hanging on his neck.

    In his letter dated January 17 to Bukola Saraki, the Senate President, the president admitted his refusal to suspend Babachir Lawal was based on the recommendation of a review team he had set up. Obviously, on the strength of the team’s self-serving advise to save one of their members, the president  insisted ‘the Senate Ad hoc report was an interim report signed only by three of nine members and which ought to have been presented to the Senate at plenary for adoption’; and that the ‘Senate ad hoc report dated 16th December 2015 does not meet the principle of fair hearing and compliance with Senate rules for conduct of investigation in matters relating to abuse of office by public officers’. On both counts, it happened the president was misled. The report was signed by seven members and Babachir Lawal was in fact invited through a newspaper public notice advertisement.

    Babachir  Lawal who was accused by the Senate of misappropriation of funds and lack of transparency in the Presidential Initiative North East (PINE) was finally sacked on Monday. This was coming about five months after the submission of the Vice President Osinbajo’s committee report. The self-serving advice of the president’s trusted aides has opened him to attack from even his APC party members such as Shehu Sani, chairman of Senate Committee on the Mounting Humanitarian Crisis in the North-east who claims “when it comes to fighting corruption in the National Assembly and in the judiciary and in the larger Nigerian sectors, the president uses insecticide, but when it comes to fighting corruption in the presidency, they use deodorant”. Now even PDP men who in decent societies should be behind bars for their crime against our nation are trying to divert attention of Nigerians.

    If Pa Bisi Akande’s warning about the presence of some unpatriotic Nigerians determined to sabotage Buhari’s government even before it took off fell on deaf ears; if the president’s wife alarm that those who do not even understand the agenda of APC were out to sabotage her husband’s presidency was dismissed as antics of a housewife whose place belongs in the kitchen and the other room, it is hoped the unpatriotic role of the president’s kitchen cabinet members in the Lawal and Maina scandals will at least remind the president of Maitama Sule’s warning  that he stood the chance of becoming  the greatest Nigerian president if he embraced justice and fairness, virtues that have come under severe assault  by members of the president kitchen cabinet in the last two years.

    Adesina who attributed five months delay to the president’s ‘painstakingness and thoroughness’ is perhaps too young to know that we once had an organized society with Action Group, NPC and NCNC in a race to outperform each other in serving their various people. And as if celebrating his boss’ virtue, he says of the president, “Anybody that knows this president will know that he’s a man that takes his time but when he makes up his mind, he makes it up real good. Who can pressure the President?

    Again this is part of the president’s problem.  No one is telling the president that he is an elected servant of the people and must hold FEC meeting as scheduled or delegate without abdicating and that the president’s cabinet members who continue to genuflect instead of pointing out some of his inadequacies are not different from Obasanjo or Jonathan’s cabinet ministers that humoured both former presidents to disastrous end.

    President Buhari must be told the buck stops at his table. We did not elect his warring kitchen cabinet members. Neither did we elect his ministers some of whom even in an APC government of change, move around in convoys of many cars at taxpayers’ expense.

  • Aso Villa clinic as metaphor

    It was Zahra Buhari who back in September first wondered why despite the N3 billion budgeted for the State House Clinic, workers not only “don’t have the equipment to work with, patients/staff have to buy what they need such as ‘simple paracetamol, gloves and syringe”.

    Aisha Buhari, the president wife will later seize the occasion of the opening of a two-day stakeholders’ meeting on Reproductive, Maternal, New-born Child, Adolescent Health and Nutrition held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa to take the fight directly to Dr.  Munir, the Chief Medical Director of the State House Clinic. She wanted to know the rationale for “building new structures when there are no equipment and  consumables in the health facility established to take care of the President, Vice-President, their families as well as members of staff of the Presidential Villa”.

    Aisha and her daughter undoubtedly meant well for the country. If those who could look at the Leviathan, President Buhari, on the face and remind him of his contract with the people have been shut out by short-sighted northern irredentists, the president’s immediate family can at least remind that him the buck stops at his table. If there is no syringe or cotton wool in medical centre located under the nose of the chief priest of change, and which had for 15 years attracted humongous budgetary allocations before the 2016/17 N3.87b, an amount which is N787m more than all the total allocations to all the 16 federal Teaching Hospitals spread around the country, it is obvious it will be business as usual in all those far-fetched areas. And if the problem is corruption as being insinuated by the president’s family members, that will give us an insight as to why there is total decay in all the nations federal health institutions including the University College Hospital, Ibadan, once regarded as one of the best three teaching hospitals in Commonwealth nations, and the 16 other glorified teaching hospitals set up without any abiding philosophy beyond sharing free oil revenue.

    But there is a heuristic value in the current intervention of the president’s immediate family. The waste associated with the state house medical centre is a metaphor for all that is wrong with President Buhari’s administration—nepotism, corruption, lethargy and betrayal of expectation of many Nigerians.

    This column had argued President Buhari was free to select those he could trust to deliver on his contract with Nigerians even if they all came from his Daura village. Unfortunately, those the president trusted as Pa Bisi Akande pointed out at the early stage, did not share his pan- Nigeria vision beyond shutting out those who carried him on their back across the country during the electioneering period and others who publicly dared Nigerians to stone them if Buhari failed to implement the APC agenda to the letter. More tragic for our nation, a section of the Nigeria press,  committed to no higher values beyond what goes into their pocket for merely mirroring society at its basest, provided the intellectual support for this anti-Nigeria group. It took the intervention by the president’s wife to confirm Pa Akande’s fears when several months later, she accused those she claimed hijacked her husband’s government of knowing nothing about APC agenda.

    We now know that those Buhari put in place of trust did not share his pan-Nigeria vision and passion. Babachir Lawal, who knew Buhari expects Caesar’s wife to be above board, had no excuse in his capacity as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, getting involved in contract awards to a company in which he allegedly had an interest. The lopsided appointments into various positions including the recent appointment into the Board of NNPC were carried out by those President Buhari placed in positions of authority. Maikanti Baru of NNPC arrogantly justified his action by claiming he reports to the minister and not the minister of state. He did not tell Nigerian who chairs the Board of NNPC in the absence of President Buhari who also doubles as the minister for petroleum. We all know President Buhari turned back those who carried official files to him in London.

    Other President Buhari’s confidants that have betrayed the president’s confidence include the Attorney General who not too long ago, attempted to hide behind an ad-hoc committee the president set up to reposition the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit and restore its membership of the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Unit, to undermine the office of EFCC acting chairman. We can also recall how two different reports emanating from the office the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DG-DSS), Lawal Daura was all the self-serving Senate needed to justify non-confirmation of Ibrahim Magu as EFCC chairman. And finally, if the president has any doubt about the warnings of Pa Akande and his wife as to the loyalty of some of his confidants, the scandalous reabsorption of Abdulrahseed Maina in spite of the 14 EFCC charges on his neck with the help of the offices of Attorney General and Minster of Justice is sufficient evidence to show they do not identify with the president’s anti -corruption crusade.

    The president has made some giant strides despite effect of naira devaluation foisted on him by the World Bank and their Nigerian fronts that dismissed his argument against devaluation in an import-dependent economy. The government, as the minister of information has said, has also continued to provide regular supply of fuel to Nigerians without having to pay some parasites N1.6trillion as fuel subsidy. We have paid counterpart funding for the modernization of some of our railway projects.  But these are no substitutes for good governance which manifests through fairness, justice, and creation of an enabling environment to make the governed believe they have the protection of their government as they pursue their daily chores.

    From the crisis of nepotism, corruption, legitimacy and identity, the fallout of attempts by President Buhari’s confidants to undermine his pan Nigerian vision, let us now return to the billion-gulping State House Clinic. Do we really need a State House Clinic whose combined N3.1billion budgetary allocation in 2016 and 2017 is higher than the combined allocation to all the tertiary healthcare centres in the country?

    The answer is no. Elsewhere in the world, state houses have only clinics that take care of emergencies while head of governments and civil servants like those they are elected to serve depend on public hospitals for their health challenges. While leaders of government in those advanced economies fly commercial airlines and use public transport, our president controls a fleet of aircraft while the leadership of the legislature control fleet of cars at taxpayers’ expense.

    The decision by our political leaders to create special privileges in the guise of perks of office is a misreading of the policy thrust of our colonial masters who did so to meet the needs of civil servants who were birds of passage as they were posted around the Commonwealth nations.

  • World Bank and Buhari’s other enemies

    World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim’s last week innocuous statement that President Buhari directed his Breton Wood  institution to focus developmental efforts exclusively in the north was all the ammunition the president’s other enemies needed for an all-out assault on his person and his government.  The denial by the presidency that the demand made on the World Bank was the “rebuilding of the beleaguered North-east” has been dismissed as an afterthought by those who have an axe to grind with him especially defeated PDP and its men who are at the receiving end of Buhari’s anti- corruption war, some restless office seekers and Christian warriors who want us to be wary of Buhari’s islamisation agenda. It was also an opportunity to once again regale us with stories of nepotism, marginalisation and domination of Buhari’s cabinet by Muslims, a claim the vice president, Pastor Osinbajo denied after pointing out that there are indeed more Christians than Muslims in the president’s cabinet. We are also told by tale bearers that Buhari as a former Fulani herdsman before Ahmadu Bello identified him as a candidate for the military and now as Nigerian President as well as a self-confessed proud owner of 500 heads of cows; he cannot but be associated with the dastardly acts of some Fulani herdsmen that have turned farmland and villages across Nigeria into killing fields. And how about the president’s silent support for Baru, the GMD of NNPC in his current face-off with the Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, over contract award? The president, as a Fulani man cannot resist taking side with Baru, another Fulani man, the President’s political foes insisted. Drowning PDP held a press conference citing the President cover up of Baru’s alleged $25b contract as another evidence of what was dismissed as his selective anti-corruption war. This was coming long after Vice President Osinbajo had said there was no $25b contract award of any type contrary to the claim of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources.

    All is fair in war as in politics; not even the advice of former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, who is not a fan of Buhari or any leader for that matter, against politicizing the discussion between President Buhari and Jim Yong Kim about ‘the prioritizing given to North-east’ as ‘reconstruction of post-conflict zone has often proved to be key for the rest of country’s growth and stability’ received any attention.

    Neither did Adams Oshiomhole, the immediate past governor of Edo State’s assertion that “It is a matter of fact that I (he) was present at the meeting of President Muhammadu Buhari with the World Bank President Dr. Jim Yong Kim on July 21, 2015 at the Blair House, Washington DC where Mr President made the request against the backdrop of the devastation of the North-east zone and the need for international organisations to rise in support of the efforts of the Nigerian government in arresting the humanitarian crisis in that part of the country” succeeded in changing the mindset of those who believe Buhari is a northern irredentist is on a mission to subvert the interest of the south if he cannot immediately Islamise Nigeria.

    As evidence of his loyalty to the north as against his constitutional obligation as Nigerian President, Buhari’s political enemies also reminded us of his lopsided appointments and the domination of the security services by Muslim military officers of northern extraction. They did not forget to call attention to the president’s deafening silence on corruption allegation against Babachir Lawal, the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

    Our revered father, Pa Ayo Adebanjo was not one that will allow such an opportunity to go without taking a swipe at Buhari for whom he has nothing but contempt. Pa Adebanjo says by telling the World Bank president that more attention should be given to the northern region, Buhari has shown which section of the country matters most to him, insisting “President Muhammadu Buhari is president of the North and not president of Nigeria”. As a parting shot he said “The greatest mistake made was for Yoruba to vote for Buhari. The South-west is regretting voting for him”. He however did not say when the Yoruba who rejected his attempt to drag them to PDP and clueless Jonathan who after marginalizing the Yoruba that worked for his ascendancy to power for six years tried to ridicule Yoruba leaders with bribes in the run up to the 2015 election told him this. It is curious that Pa Adebanjo often forgets the warning of Awo, his leader who as far back as the 1940s said ethnic consideration or pressure from leaders would not sway the voting pattern of the Yoruba in favour of someone who has no agenda to improve their lives.

    Of all Buhari’s enemies, the World Bank as an institution is perhaps the most potent. It was the bank that worked hand in gloves with MKO Abiola and General Babangida to dump him during his first coming in 1983 as military Head of State for insisting Nigerians should starve if they could not produce their own grains and for challenging us look inwards instead of importing the labour of other societies while our own children roam the streets in search of non-available jobs. It is on record that to please IMF and World Bank, IBB and his group, following the removal of Buhari, introduced Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) that led to the collapse of our budding industries and the flooding of our market with foreign goods.

    It is instructive that the same World Bank that never enforced devaluation of currency in European countries such as Italy, Greece, Spain and France during their economic challenges few years back, canvassed for the devaluation of the naira when Buhari came in 2015. They gave out bailouts to European countries facing economic down turn, but have for two years advised President Buhari against taking loans. Inability to borrow money to inflate the economy has the potential for social dislocations. If that is not happening yet, perhaps twisting what President Buhari said can quicken same.

    Finally, Buhari is haunted by his past as part of the military that fraudulently claimed to have sacrificed their present for our future but ended up destroying our structure and political socialization process.

    President Buhari like the rest of us may be a victim of Nigeria’s common affliction –love for our ethnic group and fierce protection of our religious freedom. But since these are virtues celebrated by the federal arrangement we pretend to practice, the President’s perceived weaknesses do not make him any less committed to our nation. If anything, President Buhari, the author of “Nigerians have no other country to call their own” has in spite of his personal weaknesses earned his place in history as one leader who is fully committed to making Nigeria a better place for our children.

    Fortunately for President Buhari, his position in history is not threatened by antics of his many enemies including mischief makers, discredited politicians and corrupt elements who as Oshiomhole said ‘are trying to twist, manipulate and politicize a patriotic request borne out of altruistic motivation’.

  • Dame Jonathan Vs EFCC

    Dame Patience Jonathan, our amiable former first lady who kept Nigerians laughing in spite of their challenges has in the last two years gone through a lot of stress and strain in a bid  to have access to some $15m frozen in  four bank accounts which although bear neither her name nor her signature, but insists belong to her. Her only remote connection with the accounts, according to EFCC, are Dame Jonathan’s driver, house boy and two other domestic staff, all of whom have denied knowledge of the existence of the bank accounts or their deposits. But the former first lady is determined to take the battle to the presidency, the legislature, the judiciary and in to the court of public opinion.

    Madam Patience Jonathan, according to EFCC, was never the target of their probe. However, as part of investigations into a money laundering case against a former Special Adviser on Domestic Affairs to ex-President Jonathan, Waripamowei Dudafa, the EFCC had traced four company accounts to him with a balance of $15m. The ex-first lady turned up to lay claim to the money. But neither she nor her supporters – the Bayelsa youths and some PDP stalwarts have been very explicit as to the source of the $15m. While one of her lawyers, Charles Ogbodi first told Channels TV’s Sunrise that the money belonged to Dame Jonathan’s late mother, Madam Charity Fyneface Oba who was never known to have been an investor or industrialist, others claimed it was not unusual for an amiable ‘peoples’ first lady’ like Dame Jonathan to receive such amount as gifts from Nigerian joyful givers who clothe her lawmakers and buy aircrafts for some of her many prosperity prophets.

    That the source of the money is shrouded in secrecy or that Dame Jonathan has no connection with the bank accounts would not have been sufficient reasons to deny  her access to the accounts during her husband reign of impunity when as a non-elected official, she could subject civil servants to public inquisition or prevail on a Minister for Federal Capital Territory appointed by her husband to retrieve for her, a prime plot that was allocated to Mrs Yar’Adua , the first lady before her , just to satisfy her lust.

    But there is a new sheriff is in town who insists the rules must be followed. “The EFCC and ICPC Act , according to Itse Sagay the chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption “have provisions under which they can ask the court to freeze the account of a person if a person’s capacity to earn is below the amount of money that the person appears to have”. The implication of this is that Dame Jonathan, who as a civil servant lays claim to owning $15m ware-housed in banks, must be probed.

    This was how Dame Jonathan’s nightmare started. The probe according to EFCC first led to the discovery of another account in Skye Bank with a deposit of $5m owned by Patience Jonathan.  The investigations later revealed that apart from  about 15 properties in Abuja including six choice properties secured by proxy in Abuja, Patience Jonathan  allegedly owns the following  nine properties in Port Harcourt and Balyelsa: Former Customs Service officers mess; two duplexes at 2/3 Bauchi Street; Landed property at Ambowei Street; Three luxury apartments of 4-bedroom each at Ambowei Street; Grand View Hotel on Airport Road all in Port Harcourt  while two marble duplexes at Otioko GRA by Isaac Boro Expressway; Glass House on Adaka Boro Expressway;Akemfa Etie Plaza by AP Filling Station, Melford Okilo Road  and Aridolf Resort, Wellness and Spa on Isaac Boro Abacha Expressway which they estimated at N10bn  with their Royal suite costing a princely  N367, 000 per night, are all in in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.

    It is not a crime for first ladies to own properties. It is in fact on record that Babangida, Abacha Yar’Adua and Obasanjo at different periods during their presidency gave tacit support to their spouses through their ministers for housing or for Abuja to corner prime properties belonging to the state.

    In her petition to President Buhari however, Dame Jonathan was silent on her ownership of properties. Instead she went on to accuse Magu of exhibiting “vindictive disposition towards her family” and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), he heads of “relentlessly plotting to destroy her family”.

    The focus of her petition to the House of Representatives was on the frozen $20m. She is asking the House to prevail on Magu to defreeze her accounts. She has already secured some listening ears in the House where Hon. Abonta Uzoma Nkem (PDP, Abia), who as chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions, has already issued a warrant of arrest on Magu, the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),  for failing to appear before the committee for the third time.

    And finally, Madam Jonathan has taken her case to the court of public opinion. In a statement signed by her media aide, Belema Meshack-Hart, she informed Nigerians that “For almost three years, this agency of government has beamed its searchlight on her and her family members, including siblings and parents, as well as her Foundation ….with an intention, “to disgrace, intimidate, dehumanise and ridicule her and her family, through sheer cheap propaganda, sensational investigation and media trial’.

    She then went on to make two important clarifications. First, that there is an existing tradition of the country’s first ladies coming up with “one pet project or the other, with which they sought to intervene in the lives of less privileged.”  And second, she denied ownership of “all the magnificent edifices in Abuja, Yenagoa or Port Harcourt that had been presented to the media as belonging to Mrs. Patience Jonathan.”

    The problem however is that, the former first lady, after playing the victim, went on to slam a N2 billion Fundamental Human Rights suit against the EFCC alleging the invasion of her property by the body’s officers in her absence was a breach of her fundamental right among others. How can you claim damages for invasion of properties you claim you did not own as at the time of the invasion?

    We however have no reason to doubt the former first lady’s claim that EFCC was out to call the dog a bad name in order to hang it. And by publicly disclaiming ownership of the Abuja, Port Harcourt and Yenagoa choice properties after what she described as ‘two years of media trial by EFCC’, she has now made the job of the body easier. Her public disclaimer of these choice properties is the ‘certificate of occupancy’ the body needs to attract serious buyers. At the end the sales, it is hoped, EFCC will have no difficulty paying Dame Jonathan damages that may might follow her N2b suit.

    And far more important, that the former first lady has encountered difficulties in accessing humongous amount of funds we have no evidence she earned, is but a confirmation of the giant strides the nation has made in the battle against corruption in the last two years. Even if Nigerians, including civil society groups do not admit this, last week’s verdict of the former ex-US envoy to Nigeria, John Campbell that although “Patience Jonathan who she described as “flamboyant, arrogant”, “has yet to be convicted of a crime. But that, it is curious how a person who spent most of her career in public service could accumulate an acknowledged $35 million in a poor country” is evidence enough that the era of impunity when it is believed ‘stealing government fund is no corruption’ is gone forever.