The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Our Girls; ECOWAS Benue Case; 100,000Mw

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Leah Sharibu and others are not yet released. Giwa LGA – seven killed, 29 dead in Zamfara this last weekend.

    More important than the elections is the judgment of the ECOWAS court in the case of Rev. Fr. Solomon Mfa & 11 others Vs. Federal Republic Of Nigeria suit no.: ECW/CCJ/APP/11/16 delivered on Tuesday, February 26. In the Suit filed by the Movement Against Fulani Occupation (MAFO) and some individual plaintiffs against Nigeria seeking declarations, compensation and damages for various human rights violations of communities in Benue State following armed herdsmen attacks.

    The court held that Nigeria violated the human rights of Benue communities by not protecting them, providing succour and not investigating and prosecuting perpetrators.

    The court upheld that herdsmen were attacking and killing and not that Benue people were killing each other.

    The court found Nigeria culpable by not upholding the fundamental principle of Article 1, African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights that not only do states, parties recognize the rights, duties and freedoms enshrined in the charter, they also respect them and give effect to them and are in violation of the African charter even if the state or its agents were not the perpetrators.

    The Court ordered:

    That Nigeria should immediately set up a commission to enquire into the atrocities committed by the herdsmen against Benue communities, identify, prosecute the culprits and ameliorate the victims’  hardships.

    The federal government should immediately deploy machinery in the affected areas and beef up security to forestall further attacks on Benue communities.

    The court however, declined to award damages and compensation for the victims and affected communities because the plaintiffs did not list the names (and details) of the killed and injured, the actual properties destroyed and its value etc. (At filing April, 2016 these details were not available).

    The court’s judgments are not appealable but it can review judgment.

    Hurray!!! A wonderful victory for the tortured and those 2-3 million IDPs rendered beggars. Give them due compensation before their rightful billions get stolen/eaten by any locust politicians in 2019-2023.

    Whatever the elections results, corrupted or not, the incoming politicians are offered yet another four yearly and perhaps the last opportunity to really save this country. The people’s desperate and rightful needs and now their lives have been rubbished for the politicians’ greed for too long- over 50 years. Be warned that country will die financially, medically, educationally and ‘road-network-ly’, if we have no real political sacrifice and service. Serve with dignity and honesty for three years 11 months and steal in the last one month if you have been cursed at birth to steal from the children of Nigeria- a grave hell-bound sin!!!

    We must all join in 2019 to end Boko Haram mayhem and the national 20+ year armed herdsmen militia deliberately marauding and murdering our children. My solution like others offered for 10+ years is ‘Breed and keep the cows in the North on ranches in their vast lands and grow grass locally to feed them or bring grass to feed them from elsewhere and transport the cows to markets nationwide by rail and road on demand’.

    This will stop the murderous clashes immediately. Nigeria cannot survive another murderous four years. A cow meat boycott will be a real consideration as the value of the cow will plummet to nothing rendering the wealth of the owners into nothing. It does not have to be that way but soon no Nigerian will want to eat a cow brought to the table at the expense of the blood of another Nigerian family’s loved ones. Pictures of IDPs should remind us all of misery of these wonderful downtrodden compatriots. The problem may be deeper than cow trouble but the cow problem is solvable by avoiding contact and combat. We may be forced to have cows roam our schools and hospital compounds but no one can force-feed us cow meat and that would have become ‘blood cow’ like ‘blood diamonds’ and ‘blood oil’. People must not die, be displaced or be distressed for other people’s economic advantage.

    Other areas needing total solution include 24/7 electricity. Nigerians across the country are financially facing ruin from the high cost of substituting for a powerless country. Nigerians from every home, family and business are forced to burn billions weekly due to the profound and disgraceful incompetence of government in the past 40 years and lack of creativity in solving the power problem.

    Japan so loved its people that it provided emergency 10,000Mw in three months when an earthquake destroyed a whole Fukushima nuclear plant that is less than 5% of its needs. Nigeria has no natural disaster and no 10,000Mw for all its 150,000Mw needs. But it has CINS- Corrupt, Incompetent Negligent and Selfish politics and political parties and politicians and governments. Incoming governments must know that 24/7 power will reduce the cost of living, put more naira in pockets, reduce cost of entrepreneurial startups, doing business and production costs. This will translate into cheaper business, huge job opportunities and reduced emotional and financial family and office stress with fewer suicides increasing the happiness factor nationwide.

     

    • LAST CHANCE – Please Vote ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES ON MARCH 9th-SDG 16.

  • State Of The Nation: Akpabio’s strength overrated in Akwa Ibom – Eriye

    Political analyst and Sunday Editor of The Nation Newspapers, Festus Eriye, joined by Senior Correspondent Dare Odufowokan to discuss the 2019 Presidential and National Assembly elections, Senator Godswill Akpabio and Senate President Bukola Saraki losing their senatorial seat.

  • Our Girls; Election violence cannot be for service

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Leah Sharibu and others are not released.

    Nationwide the election has taken place. Perhaps by today we know the presidential winner. Our country is crippled by massive looting since pre-1999, by Corruption, Incompetence, Neglect and Selfishness, (CINS) and backward. To whoever wins, Nigeria is nowhere near where it should have been. Every state and LGA has had enough funds to make it a spectacular success economically. The federal government has always had enough funds to transform Nigeria to a 21st century country. At each level there is massive failure to deliver the needs of the citizenry. The people are left empty and the common denominator in the failure is politicians -greed and corruption.

    Mr. President 2019-2023, get something straight: Nigeria’s money belongs to Nigerians, not you or your party or politicians in states and LGAs. Nigeria is running out of time to develop. We need every naira coming in to be used for development, not 30-70-100% kickbacks for party theft or politicians’ billions. Nigeria cannot afford to miss developing beyond ethnic politics in 2019-2023. The financial stranglehold of politicians must be removed.

    Once again, the evil among us injure, maim, disenfranchise and shed blood of the innocent, killing ad hoc INEC staff, a first-time voter, and rival politicians. Explosions by Boko Haram in Maiduguri, murder of party members and voters and ballot box snatching darken the corridor to democracy. Ballot box snatching is a crime and can be tried under a charge of ‘diverting the course of democracy’ a civilian or even a civilian militia coup plot against democracy.

    A youth corps member was abducted but released and one was injured by thugs. Abduction is a very violent attack on mind and body even if no scratch is found. No abducted victim is ‘unharmed’. There are always mental consequences and damage from forced deprivation, incarceration and fear.  Such actions should be prosecutable and not pretend that ‘Election violence is not as bad as criminal violence’. Election violence like domestic violence is criminal and prosecutable violence against the citizens and state -coup plotting. Election violence makes our society a primitive society where brawn triumphs repeatedly over brain. But the perpetrators do not care for reputation or the republic. They only seek power in order to rob and rape the citizens and country of their funds and a predictable progressive future- a political right denied them by thieving politicians downgrading their conscience to accommodate the stealing of billions.

    Who will comfort or compensate the NYSC victims? They are deserving of automatic post-NYSC federal employment, a hefty compensation package and national and NYSC honours. Who will compensate and comfort the families of the dead? Nobody. We have lost another opportunity to join ‘The Committee of Violence-Free Elections Nations’. Most painful is that too many politicians actually gain victory after deaths from unleashing warfare like this violence. They will be bold enough to step forward as the ‘democratic winner’ of a criminal coup-deviated democratic process and demand to be called excellency, honourable etc. They should be in prison or hung for the crimes of coup plotting and murder.

    How can a murderer give us what we need- a corruption free country, electricity, water, well-equipped schools and hospitals, good roads and new roads and bridges, rail and opening other ports and security? Nobody who employs a thug or plots to steal a single ballot box can suddenly become our saviour. We trivialise the crime of ‘violence during the political process’ by shortening it to ‘political violence’. We made that mistake with domestic violence which should be ‘violence’. The home or politics are merely the situation of the crime, not an excuse for the crime. The injured and dead in the political situation are just as injured and dead as if armed robbers had attacked them. The ‘Cloak of Politics’ in no way lightens the pain of injury, the certainty of death or burden of guilt and the need for punishment. Anyone involved in suffering or maiming or murdering is a civilian coup plotter and should hold no public or political office -a moral position.

    But we are not alone in mob violence and even murder. Until recently the Southern USA relished lynching thousands of African Americans for imaginary and trivial ‘crimes’ like being in the wrong place – America-, looking at a white female or being disrespectful. These murderers were actively protected by police. There was no punishment as the blacks were classified as animals. It was so natural that the three or four or 50 white murderers, fathers and sons, wives and daughters, would gather round their victims hanging from or tied to a tree or spread out and barbecued on a fire, and have a photographer come from town, there was no selfie then, and take a picture for the newspaper and the family album. And they hung a few whites as well. Murder by mob lynching and burning was trivialised for them.

    This is no excuse for us. The heart of man is evil. That was racism at its worst. What is violence against your own Nigerian citizens to force your political will on them? Simply murder!  Are you a murderer-politician! Election violence can never be for service.

     

    • Please Vote ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES ON MARCH 9th-SDG 16.

     

  • 2019 Elections: Sympathy for INEC

    After the false start of February 16, Nigerians finally went to the polls yesterday to pick the man who would lead them for the next four years. As you read this, emerging trends would be pointing to the direction they have elected to go.

    This election is likely to impact the political landscape in more significant ways than we can imagine because of the starkly contrasting visions of the leading contenders.

    If President Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC) are re-elected, we may see more of his much-vaunted onslaught against corruption – especially with his firm declaration that it is his duty to jail looters.

    We would see continued controls on foreign currency exchange rates and investment in infrastructure projects across the country. But more importantly, he would – at the end of his tenure – have had eight unbroken years to shape the nation in his image.

    Were Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to prevail, then we are equally in for interesting times given his ambitious reform agenda. For starters, his signature campaign promise on restructuring the country is to be activated within six months of his assumption of office.

    He has also promised to sell of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and discontinue the foreign currency controls of the Buhari administration. We should definitely expect that his approach to the war against corruption would be markedly different. I expect him to roll back a lot of things that Buhari has done in this area in much the same manner that the late Umaru Yar’Adua did after succeeding former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

    The outcome of the presidential and National Assembly contest would also affect the governorship and state assembly polls in two weeks. Whenever we have had the presidential contest first, there has tended to be a bandwagon effect, simply because Nigerian politicians are terrified of languishing in the opposition wilderness.

    So I expect that whoever wins between Buhari and Atiku, the impact would be profound in states where the margins between the parties are small.

    It also means that we may see a greater level of desperation and violence in two weeks as key figures fight for their political lives.

    That is par the course as far as Nigerian politics goes. Indeed, this campaign season shows us that not much has changed in the behaviour of our political elite in over five decades. Our elections are still fraught with chaotic preparations, violence, fraud and deliberate action on the part of politicians to make things unworkable.

    As usual, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is caught in the eye of the storm. This is nothing new as virtually all who have had the misfortune of superintending this agency have come away with their reputation in tatters.

    A sorry cast of names like Eyo Esua, Michael Ani, Justice Victor Ovie-Whiskey, Professor Eme Awa, Professor Humphrey Nwosu, Professor Okon Uya, Chief Sumner Dagogo-Jack, Ephraim Akpata, Abel Guobadia, Professor Maurice Iwu and Professor Attahiru Jega, highlights how a bunch of distinguished Nigeria were messed up by the electoral assignment.

    It is not for nothing that the job has been dubbed a poisoned chalice over the years. Some of these men were mercifully relieved of the burden before they went too far, while a couple were virtually broken by their experiences.

    A clear case is Nwosu who was in charge of the June 12, 1993 elections now perceived as one of the freest and better organised in Nigerian history. In the end, that election process was disrupted shortly before the results were announced by the military rulers and entrenched interests who desired a different outcome.

    Nwosu was driven into internal exile – taking a virtual vow of silence ever since – simply for doing his job too well.

    Jega was another one who left the position of election chief with limited damage to his reputation, still his tenure was characterised by notable shortcomings. We remember how the elections in 2011 were abruptly called off after many voters had been accredited and started voting in several locations.

    While the postponement of 2015 was not entirely the fault of the commission – given that the Goodluck Jonathan administration virtually forced it on INEC on account of the security issues in the Northeast, it soon became clear that had the polls gone ahead on the earlier advertised dates they would have been marred by logistics challenges.

    The improvements under Nwosu and Jega notwithstanding, the electoral process remains plagued by poor planning, logistics hiccups, fraud and compromise of electoral officers, vote buying and violence.

    The shock announcement by INEC’s current chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, in the early hours of February 16 calling off the polls was in keeping with the image of a bungling electoral body.

    But with the benefit of hindsight, even the worst critic would admit that the commission deserves some consideration because even the best laid plans can go awry – especially when they are ‘Made in Nigeria’ plans.

    Of course, there are legitimate questions to be asked of Yakubu and his team, about how they contrived to deliver a damp squib after four years of preparation. Still, it was not only the commission that was complicit in the latest cock-up.

    It is suspicious how a succession of INEC offices in some states quickly went up in flames with the upshot being the incineration of thousands of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) and card readers.

    What is known so far suggests that this was clearly the work of arsonists. These were not just random criminal minds fascinated by flames: this was clearly the handiwork of people with an interest in the electoral outcomes in their localities.

    Several people have also been arrested after scores of card readers and voters cards were found in their possession. In some cases, the readers were located in bushes where they had been dumped. These incidents confirm reports that politicians have been actively going about buying the cards off potential voters.

    A day before the abandoned February 16 polling day, hundreds of thugs imported from neighbouring states, were apprehended in Akwa Ibom. Although the elections ended up not holding, these characters still managed to wreak violence in some communities leaving the charred remains of several vehicles in the wake.

    Across the states it has been the same story of bloodletting as tension built up towards polling day.

    So even if INEC had been perfect in its logistics arrangements, the direct consequence of criminal elements being let loose in their hundreds on hapless communities would have been untold mayhem and disruption of the electoral process.

    Again, the point has to be made that the people mobilising and financing hundreds of armed thugs are not INEC officials but politicians across the divide.

    One of the big stories of this campaign season was the decision of the electoral body to bar APC from fielding candidates in Zamfara and Rivers States. As at Friday, the former got a reprieve with the commission agreeing to put the party’s members back on the ballot.

    Forty-eight hours to polling day, APC in these two states was still trying to convince INEC to include it on the ballot. This crisis situation only compounded the logistics dilemma the commission had to deal with – through no fault of theirs.

    The party had sufficient time to address the simple matter of picking its candidates but egotistical leaders and local godfathers insisted on having their way – thereby creating a needless crisis.

    It all makes the job of managing elections in Nigeria an impossible one. Perhaps the electoral body can take some consolation from the fact that it being savaged by APC and PDP – which suggests to me that it is doing something right. An agency that has stood up to the ruling party and shut out its candidates in Rivers, and until Friday in Zamfara, certainly has earned the ‘Independent’ in its name.

     

    Re: Obasanjo: Elder statesman or political fixer?

    Thank you Eriye for that clinical dissection of chief Obasanjo, the nation’s tormentor-in-chief. Obasanjo knows the much harm he had inflicted on the country while in power and is always on guard to shield himself from the unpleasant consequences whenever he sensed one coming.

    President Buhari has said he would go tougher on all that had looted the country one way or the other from 2019, and Obasanjo understands exactly what he mean. Tell a tree it will be cut down tomorrow it would still be standing there waiting for you. But you don’t let out such a threat to human being and expect him to stand there waiting for you.

    So Obasanjo sensing danger in Buhari’s determination to go after all the looters of the nation’s treasury after his reelection shouldn’t be expected to just fold his hand watching the reelection of Buhari come true, knowing the implication to him.

    Obasanjo Atiku
    •Chief Obasanjo

    Which is why he is all out to stop Buhari at all cost. And this he hopes to achieve using the platform of distractive letter-writings usually couched in the garp of his ‘love for the nation and a desire to move it forward’.

    This is the very complex that inspires his messianic delusion always aimed at diverting our attention away from his numerous harm against on the country. Its quite disturbing that a man who had spent his entire life as a soldier, not doing any other busines, and who as well ended up as rich as the country itself should be the same accusing every other Nigerian of corruption and nobody is asking questioning about his own source of humongous wealth.

    While in power, Obasanjo knew exactly what those that worked under him were looting from d country from the day one but would feign ignorance of it so long they remain submitted to his manipulations. But God help u d day u disagree with him; then you would know that EFCC wasn’t there for nothing.

    To him, just as you had reflected, no Nigerian president is a performer except those who would allow him to still control the reins of power by proxy, though that doesn’t stop him from tagging you the worst president the nation ever had still, the day you dare want to be your own man. That’s Obasanjo’s nature of love for the country and method of assessing who a true Nigerian leader is.

    So when all of a sudden he severed relationship with Buhari and in quick succession came up with different kinds of letters accusing the president of all manner of wrongdoing, Nigerians should know exactly where he is coming from.

    • From Emmanuel Egwu

  • State of The Nation: There will be massive voters turnout – Eriye

    Political analyst and Sunday Editor of The Nation Newspapers, Festus Eriye, joined by Senior Correspondent Dare Odufowokan to discuss, the rescheduled 2019 election, President Muhammadu Buhari, ballot box snatching, INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, PDP and APC.

  • Our Girls; Election, what election? Stop Sexual Abuse – ‘Do No Harm’

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Leah Sharibu and others are not released.

    Election, what election? The election has come but has not gone. Postponed, it will return on 23-2-2019. Election annulments and postponements and postponed delivery of the nation’s budget for nine months, the length of a pregnancy, are Nigeria’s democracy disasters, not dividends. We stupidly plan to re-elect the political perpetrators of four budget delays when the entire National Assembly (NASS) deserves our red card ban and total change! Incompetent politicians shout about INEC’s incompetence. Yes, but military and politicians have ruled incompetently and ruined Nigeria since 1966. Woe is Nigeria characterised by incompetence in budget and democracy delivery. In Nigeria only banks and politics are profitable!

    The Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER) should compute the cost of this postponement in INEC staff redeployment and material re-transport, state and federal public holiday losses, private business losses from work free and travel free Saturday, local and international voters travel, international and local media, international observers’ travel and allowances and accommodation – paid for by the foreign embassies –, party agents, redeployment/ mobilization for the election next Saturday.  Add the cost to the people of booked international travel and hotels for postponed thousands of weddings and other events long planned for the 23rd and now cancelled, no refund, and needing rescheduling at what cost? INEC should have been warned by NISER of this cost months ago.

    Theodore McCarrick was a Cardinal and a former Archbishop of Washington now defrocked for sexual abuse of the flock in his care. Good. Others knew of such devastation actions and also share guilt. And they are not alone.

    Nigeria also has much sexual abuse and violence. Media reviewers regularly report another rape, murder for sexual parts and sexual predator pastors, lecherous lecturers and teachers and injuries to eyes and bodies from school beatings. Horrifyingly, at a Kuje, Abuja School for the Deaf, a six-year old deaf child reported sodomy, murder and cannibalism. Nigeria has an abysmal record in preventive certification, background checks and non-corrupt supervision of educational institutions. We must take action before vulnerable have become victims.

    Many girls are forced into ‘I will fail you if..’ sex  or volunteer for ‘Sex for Pass Mark’ or are sexually abused by those who have the power by teachers, students, domestic help, family members, employers, employees and relations. Uniformed men in stations and barracks use belts and beatings and ‘pepper in the private part’ of girls and boys and needle-like broomsticks stuck down the penis to extract confessions. Political thugs happily strip naked a mentally challenged woman, Dada – sexual humiliation and abuse. Will prosecution follow this Friday Eluro’s atrocity? Fear and money must not cancel the human rights and justice. Abi, no be so?

    Unfortunately, sexually depraved people who maneuver themselves into authority, brazenly abuse that sacred moral trust and responsibility for their victims tearing the fragile fabric of morality, destroying respect and terrifying into silence vulnerable victims plunged into misery and let down by a silent oppressive society in which physical child abuse is the norm and sexual abuse is just one step further. Even one sexual assault or violence incident can make the vulnerable lose their humanity and destabilise minds leading to personality, academic and social instability undiagnosed in the veil of silence. These are manifest by personality disorders like introversion, depression, fixation, unpredictability, low self-esteem and cowering, rebellion, poor academic performance, self-deprecation, self-harm, drug dependency, alcoholism, death-wish and suicide attempts, some just to seek love or attention. If the abuser goes uncaught and unpunished, some victims become convinced that sexual abuse is normal and defend the abuser’s actions – the Stockholm Syndrome. The victim may, thinking ‘do unto others as was done to you’ or seeking revenge, become the sexually abuser of the vulnerable next generation. Harvey Weinberg, Bill Cosby, Larry Nassir, Professor Richard Akindele are the tip of the iceberg of sexual predators in every country. How can we safeguard the vulnerable?

    Introduce in your workplace and home – Eight Anti-Sexual Abuse and Anti-Violence Strategies: Vigilance! Preventive Education of potential victims and perpetrators!! Display Rules To Prevent Sexual Abuse and Violence!!! Reporting and Suspension!!!!! Documentation of Abuse!!!! Investigation!!!!!! Prosecution!!!!!!! Regular Review!!!!!!!!

    The price of moral victory over sexual abusers and perpetrators of violence is eternal vigilance and high suspicion. ‘Vigilance Must Be Institutionalized’. Do not wait for a sexual abuse crime to be committed on your watch. That is culpable failure. Take preventive action. No place is immune.  ‘Prevention Is Better than Cure’, with posters of ‘Guidelines/Rules To Prevent Sexual Abuse And Violence’ designed, discussed, displayed on notice boards and letters of compliance signed up every religious and secular worker and volunteer in every circumstance without exception. Say no to one-on-one private meetings, day or night, behind closed doors and windows and drawn curtains. Demand open windows. Doctors should refuse to see any patient alone.

    Do no act you would be ashamed of featuring on TV news. Victims must be protected when reporting while the violator faces suspension, documentation of abuse or violence, investigation and prosecution. Regular review of sexual abuse and violence strategy like for security will guarantee wide knowledge of their criminal nature and devastating effects.   A good anti-sexual abuse rule for your poster/notice board is Chris Anderson’s dictum to NGOs in conflict zones – ‘Do No Harm’ to populations.

     

    • Do not be apathetic. Please Vote ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES this Saturday -SDG 16.

     

  • State of the Nation: Amosun biggest loser at disrupted presidential rally – Eriye

    Political analyst and Sunday Editor of The Nation Newspapers, Festus Eriye, joined by Senior Correspondent Dare Odufowokan to discuss, the disruption of Ogun State Presidential and 2019 elections.

  • Our Girls; Adeyanju; AU; corruption; thugs

    Our Chibok Girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Inexplicably our Dapchi girl-child, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.

    Who is DejiAdeyanju? Google him. Is it true that he is held by an arm of the authorities for 50 days? Can this happen to a human rights activist in 2019 with elections this weekend?

    Our research economists need to get to grips with the need to assess and publicise the cost of corruption in Nigeria. Have you ever thought about the road corruption in Nigeria and its cost in the loss of billions of hours and damage to millions of lives on a daily basis?

    A very simple case study follows…. In 1976 the short-lived but at the time visionary Lagos-Ibadan Expressway brought Lagos closer to Ibadan, just one hour instead of the Sagamu nightmare or having to go through Abeokuta. But it did not last because the road was, through a moral and monetary corruption, allowed to quickly collapse structurally through criminally negligent and prosecutable zero maintenance practices even though huge sums were being raked in from tolls on the users of the deteriorating road.  All this conspired to force traffic jams and new increased time separation of Lagos from Ibadan to 3-12 agonising hours. It took five hours to get to Lagos last Sunday afternoon!!! Corruption driven roads collapse destroying the private and work lives of citizens. Hundreds of kilometres of road, initially corruptly poorly built and corruptly certified by consulting engineers under the thumb of thieving politicians believed to be demanding 30-70% of the contract sums for ‘party purposes’ as good have caused a nationwide collapse of the road network during the last 30 years. Every year we hear of budgets to redo these corruption-driven rubbish roads. No heads ever roll for signing off these badly constructed substandard roads. Just more billions down the drain. Shamefully Nigeria seems permanently retrogressive. The political class has largely led us backwards or in reverse.  The longest lasting roads are those built in the 50s and 60s. We had railways in the 50 and 60s. I was travelling from Ibadan to Zaria in 1969 for NUGA games by train and Lagos-Ibadan in 45minutes on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Not now. Those roads and railways built in the 70s and beyond just have not lasted because of political myopia, over centralisation, anti-democracy policies and base corruption of political heart and mind.  You know the Romans built roads adding to them annually and they have lasted 2000 years. Nigeria takes forever to build any small rubbish road and spends forever before rehabilitation of the same road just like with its refineries.  The cancer of corruption is in money, maintenance and execution of projects and policies. Meanwhile we rot on the Lagos-Ibadan road, not expressway so long overdue for delivery.  Google China- Pakistan Road to see real roads.

    President Al Sissiof Egypt takes over the African Union chairmanship. This AU Summit seeks cooperation across the board in health care, economic development and progress. NEPAD is changing its name to African Union Development Agency along with other reforms. The AU Free Trade Agreement is moving forward without Nigeria. The AU is seeking increases in education and health budgets to meet UN guidelines of 15% for health and 26% for education to stem the tide of displacement, economic migration and lift millions out of poverty. Did Buhari or Osinbajo attend on behalf of Nigeria or were they on the campaign trail? Charity begins at home, I suppose.

    If you kill someone directly or allow or encourage anyone under your control to kill someone, then you are a murderer and the sentence for murder is life in prison or death. If you kill someone to take political advantages or political power in your village, community or nationally, you are not only a murderer entitled to a death penalty or life imprisonment, but you are also a coup plotter. You are murdering to divert the course of democracy and change the government against the will of the people-a coup by any definition. The punishment for coup plotting is prison or death. Violence, intimidation and bribery are also part of punishable efforts to divert the course of the democratic process -a coup.  The crime of murder is not diluted because it is done in the name of politics. The dead remain dead. The injured remain injured. An orphan status is permanent and made easier because it is the result of political murder.

    Many politicians have been seen with thugs and many citizens have already suffered at their hands. Thugs recruited to divert the course of democracy often become politicians themselves.  Any politician with thugs deserves to be disqualified in a modern ‘free and fair’ electoral process in Nigeria@2019.  Unfortunately idle youth have a job of begging at events and during the political cycle. If not given free money, which some politicians have to steal from the public purse to give to thugs and run campaigns, the thugs quickly resort to rowdiness and the destruction of nearby infrastructure and destabilise the democratic process.

    A free and fair and violence free election is not a Nigerian impossibility but a political developmental necessity. It happened before. You must help. Do not encourage thugs, murder, violence, intimidation and please Vote ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES this Saturday February 16-SDG 16.

  • Our Girls;  Youth; ASUU; Election- no violence, bribes

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Inexplicably our Dapchi girl-child, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.  Still more Boko Haram murders.

    The huge turnout of desperate youth for the nationwide #BigBrother Naija auditions is a pointer to the suffering and yawning chasm in the lives of the youth seeking solutions to the problem in their lives – access to a normal livelihood in which aspirations can be achieved by hard work and honesty. They are forced to fight for spaces in a sometimes disgraceful show of shameful human emotions that is voyeurism at its worst. But can these same youth translate or metamorphose that demonstrated attempt to solve this desperation into the need to act in the coming political arena, not as thugs but as keen voters immune to bribes? They know the cause of their lack of jobs is entirely political, greed and corruption-based all compounded by Nigeria being a country with the most expensive electricity supply in the world -generator power complicating business models and compounding the cost of doing business and being a customer in Nigeria for every single citizen. Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, has computed that approximately N246b was spent on generator fueling in two years. All this is transferred directly to the client or customer through higher charges.

    The youth voters we know are in their good numbers, enough to swing the election in any direction they want. Will the youth vote contribute to getting the needed political change and come out with similar dedication, conviction and tenacity to ensure that they all, and their friends and peers, vote on February 16? The youth vote can swing the election in any direction it wants. But it requires to be united to make the needed change. If it unites behind one candidate nationwide, it could place any president in power of its choosing. Fragmented, the youth vote will be of no impact. By the way some smart youth has printed a ‘Big Brother PQP’ for sale. Anything to survive. But there is a problem with the youth of corporate Nigeria’s making. The whole issue of ‘instant millionairism’ was started years ago in the promotional bonanzas and prizes across many companies. The youth were attracted to quick money without work. At its peak every day, they advertised one or 10 instant millionaire competitions amounting to N2-3billion/year. All these have corrupted the minds of the youth raising a few winners, many losers and many more frustrated with life.

    It a great disgrace to Nigeria that its youth struggling to face their studies at university are on the receiving end of the ASUU strike. Everywhere we run into frustrated youth, sitting at home frustrated beyond words as time ticks by, time that cannot be recalled, while government and ASUU posture and play the game of negotiation, TV dramatics and media grandstanding. Sadly government continues to shirk its responsibility to meet criminal shortfalls in the education budget responsible for the disastrous state of the universities being campaigned against by ASUU. It is always a pity that the Nigerian public stands aside and masquerades as innocent bystanders or a disinterested  crowd when such strikes occur and watch instead of coming down in favour of one or the other side based on wise counsel. We have not heard any outcry by a parent and guardian coalition or more importantly the alumni associations of the universities backs by facts and figures in favour of one side or the other. Analytical education news articles on the causes and consequences of the strike are sadly thin on the ground in number and especially in vital statistics. ASUU is notorious for being a poor public advocate of the need for a strike and public opinion is too often swayed against ASUU by fickle press stories. Nobody wants a strike. Any incoming government must face its enormous responsibility to clean up the mess created in education by serial underfunding of past governments whose heads sit on the Council of State and continue to mislead us into the future.

    The courts have finally forced the forfeiture of Patience Jonathan’s N1b even as they have lost all credibility in the eyes of the public with judge after judge falling under the microscope but no all passing the anticorruption test.

    The arctic freeze is a reminder of the fragility of the earth and how lucky we are in Nigeria. Just imagine for a moment if we had such weather and such a poor power supply system. Just imagine how many would be frozen to death. So far, our greedy, selfish politicians, totally responsible for our situation of ‘the poorest power grid in Africa’ are very lucky that we are so complacent and the weather is so good to us and we accept and cope with the heat.

    As we prepare to vote next Saturday, look at the politicians you seek to place in power over you for the next four years and count the number of thugs they move around with. The more the thugs the less the sincerity. Please work for a peaceful election and keep as many photographs of any violence without endangering yourself. Death is permanent to thug and voter.  We want to vote without violence!

     

    • Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.

     

  • Ezekwesili, Moghalu and other also-rans

    Only the All Progressives Congress’ (APC) Muhammadu Buhari or the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Atiku Abubakar, have a chance of being elected Nigeria’s next president come February 16.

    Yet, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has a long list of other names aspiring to this office, even if the closest they would ever get to becoming president is on their beautifully-designed posters!

    These are the latest in the long line of eccentric characters who have added colour to our politics through the years. I speak of the likes of the late lawyer, Tunji Braithwaite, who running on the platform of the defunct Nigeria Advance Party (NAP) threatened to exterminate mosquitoes and cockroaches across the land. Many took him literally, and when they recovered from their fits of mirth, his presidential dreams became the primary casualty.

    You had the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti who, had he been improbably elected president, would have had internecine warfare on his hands deciding who amongst his 27 queens would have been First Lady. Mercifully, his political ambitions melted away like the notes one of his less-than-successful songs.

    Who can forget the foray of the effervescent Pastor Chris Okotie, founder of the Household of God Church? He plunged into the race confidently assuring Nigerians that he had the assurance of heaven to make the bid. Who are we to query God? But the Lord must have backed out of the project somewhere between the pastor’s declaration and polling day, because he only managed a couple of thousands of votes nationwide.

    Still, we are grateful to Okotie whose campaign wasn’t noted for the novelty of his proposals for governance, but for stump speeches laden with earth-shaking English words that would have required a battery of professors to decode for the National Assembly had he ever entered Aso Rock.

    This recollection would be incomplete without mentioning the inimitable Gani Fawehinmi who ran on the platform of the National Conscience Party (NCP). He was often referred to as the Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM). Unfortunately, they abandoned him when he needed them most – on polling day. The poor man was then left to carry out his political campaigns in the courts.

    The 2019 class of also-rans equally has its own share of interesting characters – although none of them as colourful as any of the aforementioned. They include the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate – and one-time PDP rising star – Donald Duke.

    The list has former Central Bank Deputy Governor, Kingsley Moghalu, businessman and one-time activist, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim of Peoples Trust Party, activist and publisher Omoyele Sowore, as well as motivational speaker Fela Durotoye.

    One of the most well-known names among the lot is the Bring back Our Girls (BBOG) campaigner and former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili. Even after dramatically throwing in the towel, INEC would not let her go.

    I suspect that beyond the soundbites for television cameras and newspapers, these individuals know deep down none of them would be president this year. So what would make an ordinarily rational, well-educated, experienced, accomplished and widely-travelled man or woman, persist in a very expensive race to nowhere?

    I can only guess that their running for president, specifically, is a means to some other end. You could also argue that some have outsized egos that need to be caressed by the notion they ran for president – albeit on some rickety political platform.

    But then politicians are also some of the most optimistic beings on the planet. They know they can’t get the prize first time out, but keep coming back in the hope of hitting the jackpot along the line. Who remembers today that there was a time when Rochas Okorocha used to entertain us with is presidential bids? But one day he rationalised his ambitions and now is governor of Imo State.

    The thing about these fringe candidates is that sometimes they make a difference in a tight race – especially if they are people with grassroots following. In the 1992 US presidential contest, the third party candidate – billionaire businessman Ross Perot – took away enough votes from the Republican George H. W. Bush, allowing the Democrat Bill Clinton to emerge victorious.

    The problem for the 2019 bunch is that none of them really has the kind of grassroots following that counts – except on Twitter and Instagram. In the social media age that might mean something, but is not likely to get you anywhere near a local government chairman’s seat.

    Some of them are vociferous critics of government and are usually brimming with ideas on how to transform the economy and the nation at large. But you cannot implement your ideas unless to find the right platform and get elected.

    If your ideas are to address today’s problems, then you must use the existing vehicles that can get you there. Anything else is just utopian daydreaming. In Nigeria at this point, only the APC or PDP can get you the presidency and it doesn’t matter how badly you think they stink.

    But such is our fascination with the presidency that we’ve become seduced with the notion that it is only through that office that you can impact governance and society. Some of those dreaming of becoming president – given their training and exposure – would make excellent representatives or senators.

    People forget that Barack Obama was an ambitious community activist who didn’t jump from nowhere to run for US president. He first got into the Senate and used it as a platform to showcase his extraordinary political and oratorical gifts. It worked a charm because just four years after he became a lawmaker, he was elected president.

    But that said, I am full of admiration for these men and women who even in the face of ridicule have stuck to their guns and invested resources on what may appear at this point a futile exercise. They chose to get their hands dirty rather than sit idly by cursing our bungling rulers.

    We should encourage them to stay the course irrespective of the fate that awaits them on February 16. Perhaps, they could, like Okorocha, rationalise their ambitions and get into positions where they can begin to push their ideas through the system. And who knows, one day we may all be calling today’s ‘joker’ Mr. or Madame President.