…Buhari won’t perform poorly in Southeast
Political analyst and Sunday Editor of The Nation Newspapers, Festus Eriye, joined by Senior Correspondent Dare Odufowokan to discuss, Walter Onnoghen suspension, 2019 election, President Muhammadu Buhari and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar chances at the 2019 elections.
Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Inexplicably our Dapchi girl-child, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.
The senate has proved to be not ‘fit for purpose’, its greed, infighting, unity against interrogation and self-preservation strategies making it out of touch with the needs of a country with 70+% in poverty. Its nauseating fake and real self-generated corruption stories terrify us. Senate: Commit hara-kiri, suicide, abolish yourself or be abolished!
Nigerians -perhaps we should send no senator to senate by not voting for anyone senator in the coming election. This would abolish senate from the Nigerian governance structure.
Please collate the most important political manifesto points and come up with your People’s Manifesto. Historically politicians rarely do what they say pre-election. Restructuring is the bait by every opposition party but dropped once in offices as it is a distraction from the huge amount of money to be abused and misused. Restructuring is the recurrent sweetener of a party which did nothing when it had power. Who is talking about cutting National Assembly (NASS) salaries? Trade and professional unions must include NASS salary cut in wage demands. We do not hear of which politicians or parties will improve the value of the naira as a weapon against poverty. Please ask them at the debates. If only all the youth voted for one new party’s candidate, the old parties would be swept into retirement. Why did Oby Ezekwesili resign? Did she jump or was she pushed? Was it altruism, international job temptations, thinking that she will split the ethnic vote between her party and Obi’s party or cold feet? What is the cost of her decision, financially, morally, vote-wise? Certainly those who watched her as an admired frontline activist and woman with the best chance ever in Nigeria on the presidential debate, question this about-turn in the twisted political history of Nigeria.
Court as a circus or tragicomedy: Nigeria has lost its CJN to presidential suspension and gained an Acting CJN who they say is an expert in Sharia Law and 32 children. In Nigeria every political action is as clear as mud, the true goals buried deep in harmattan mists. Is this CJN tragicomedy about concealed bank accounts – a crime- or the time – just before the elections? Is it about the sectional demand to have a CJN by all means possible? Is it a blanket APC plot in the face of a PDP threat? Are we watching true justice at work, with EFCC merely doing its job? Should we clap or boo? Is EFCC uncharacteristically efficient? If so, at whose prompting? Why is the court system suddenly supremely efficient trying a case within a matter of days while other cases languish for many years? Why do the lawyers scuffle over where, when and how the events should unfold and before which court of correct jurisdiction?
Is the CJN such a dumbo to have seriously concealed such sums in identifiable accounts when he has just presided over a purge of the judiciary for judges found to have unexplainable or explainable money in their own homes? Presumably the EFCC of that time investigated all judges or was it just southern judges. Surely the CJN must have been included in the EFCC investigation at the time. Is it true that that northern judges need not acquire personal possessions like fat bank accounts from shady deals as their every need is attended to by the northern patronage and reward system unlike the southern system where every man is on his own making self-accumulation almost a professional calling with governance or job-performance a sideshow? Will we ever really know the truth about this CJN transition/suspension? What is it really? Is it a Supreme Court coup, a ruling APC counter coup following a political bribe to a CJN, a northern coup against a southern CJN?
For many years we have said that investigated officials should step aside during investigation. Is the presidential suspension a forced stepping aside to allow normal unfettered investigation or something more vindictive and sinister? Would anyone actually suspend a whole CJN from any part of the country without solid facts of transgression? Yes, a then serving minister, Professor Grange was taken to court and disgraced in a media trial only to be vindicated two years later. Why were the facts not discovered during the saga of the investigation before the long night of the raids on judges? What manner of judge would assume such a sensitive and exposed position with such baggage hidden in such plain site?
There is much more than meets the eye. We must ask of our judges -who is clean among you and who is wrongly stained by often-warped political expediency? Is it not strange that a whole CJN’s trail is being tossed around like an egg used as football? Where is the vice president’s advice in all of this? Justice Ayo Salami and Justice Teslim Elias were vindicated. The arguments bewilder us as lawyers take huge sums and vehemently express opposite opinions with no punishment for being wrong. Finally, the nasty putrid practice of justice makes one feel afraid, very afraid for Nigeria which has no case to answer.
Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.
A Nigerian electoral cycle cannot be complete without former President Olusegun Obasanjo inserting himself into the middle of things.
That is because despite providence assigning him a privileged position as an elder statesman with enduring respect within and without the country, what he really hankers after is to be the nation’s preeminent political fixer.
His latest epistle on the state of the nation titled ‘Points for Concern and Action’ is a perfect example of this disposition. The said piece which compared President Muhammadu Buhari to the late General Sani Abacha, questioned the competence and integrity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), accused Vice President Yemi Osinbajo of corruption and vote-buying among other things.
The piece reiterated Obasanjo’s assessment of Buhari’s performance as president. He wrote: “It is no use, at this juncture, to keep lamenting about the failure, incompetence, divisiveness, nepotism, encouragement and condonation of corruption by Buhari administration as there is neither redeeming feature nor personality to salvage the situation within that hierarchy. You cannot give what you don’t have.”
The ex-president first made his new-fangled contempt for the incumbent public last year when he called on Buhari to perish any thought of a second term. New-fangled, because four years ago he openly endorsed him in his concerted bid to topple then President Goodluck Jonathan.
As part of that early move to pre-determine the outcome of the 2019 electoral process, Obasanjo denounced the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as damaged beyond redemption, and not fit for the purpose of restoring the country’s fortunes.
He then dramatically proposed the emergence of a so-called ‘Third Force’ which he was prepared to midwife. Suspicious of this shiny new object which was being dangled before them so close to the next elections, both mainstream and fringe politicians, passed.
Left carrying the cadaver of his failed ‘Force’, Baba retreated for a season to his Abeokuta hilltop redoubt to collate every political grievance he could lay hands on – no matter how lame – while biding his time. Only the naïve would think that the timing of his most recent intervention was for anything other than ejecting his latest bete noire from office.
I have heard it said that as elder statesman, Obasanjo has an obligation to speak out on troubling issues in the polity and that the rest of us should patiently digest his message and ignore the messenger.
I have no problem hearing him out. I equally concede to him the right to freely express himself as a Nigerian citizen – especially an eminent one. But in doing so, he speaks from the exalted position of a former Head of State and now elder statesman.
Those in his place are very influential and their words attract attention inside and outside the country. It is only fair then that they don’t take undue advantage of their privileged position, and the only way to prevent that is to thoroughly examine both the message and the cleanliness of the hands of the messenger.
For starters, the very notion of being a statesman suggests the use of language that is restrained, temperate and diplomatic. Obasanjo’s communication is often abrasive, aggressive and often detracts from whatever message he seeks to pass across.
Rather than be bothered by that, he apparently revels is his ability to be as corrosive as possible – even if that means he, too, becomes the recipient of some pointed insults. Back in 2011, in one public exchange following comments made by former President Ibrahim Babangida in an interview to mark his 70th birthday, called him ‘a fool at 70.’ IBB replied that his one-time commander-in-chief was ‘a bigger fool, a failure and witless comedian.’
I know we always lament the failures of our leaders but I strain to recollect any time Obasanjo had something generous to say about any of his successors. He has judged everyone from military President Babangida to Buhari and found their performances wanting.
Even the likes of the late General Shehu Yar’Adua, who was only aspiring to be president, received putdowns in the form of questions about what he forgot in State House that he was returning for. The late M.K.O. Abiola was dismissed as not the messiah the nation was looking for. Apparently, that messiah had come in the form of ‘you know who’ and we didn’t recognise him!
The censorious tone he often takes suggests that his eight years in office error-free and we lived in heaven on earth in these parts. Many Nigerians would paint a totally different picture.
What is especially amusing about his latest public statement is the attempt to accuse Buhari of unconstitutional actions. Even if the administration were guilty of the charges, Obasanjo is hardly the one to be lobbing stones when he wrote the manual for undermining the constitution.
Under him a number of governors were hounded out office using dodgy impeachment procedures. To his shame, the courts restored all the governors that were so removed.
A couple of weeks ago, former Oyo State Governor, Rasheed Ladoja, in a newspaper interview replayed how, giddy with power, the former president displayed his contempt for the law of the land. He and a couple of other senior PDP politicians had gone to Obasanjo’s Abeokuta home to plead with him to stop the threatened impeachment.
Ladoja picks up the story. “We went to Abeokuta. I, (Olagunsoye) Oyinlola, (Gbenga) Daniel and (Olusegun) Agagu,” he said. “We went to see him and they said: Baba, you can prevent the impeachment and he said ‘Rashidi, go and resign’. I said no, I won’t resign. He said, ‘Well, if you don’t resign, then you will be removed’. I said no, they can’t remove me because they cannot get two-thirds of the members of the state House of Assembly to remove me. He said ‘two-thirds my foot, the constitution my foot!”
Admittedly, the fact that Obasanjo abused the constitution does not make it acceptable behaviour for any of his successors. What most people find revolting is the pot calling the kettle names. Hypocrisy is not a word is he’s familiar with.
Obasanjo is not infallible as we have seen from his botched bid to foist himself on the nation for a third term, as well as the stillbirth suffered by his ‘Third Force.’ That means that his ideas and public interventions must be challenged vigorously – especially where they are calculated to influence electoral outcomes.
In the recent past, he has been lucky to correctly judge which way the wind was blowing and jump on the bandwagon. He did so successfully in 2015 – but it wasn’t prescience on his part but opportunism. Four years ago it was so obvious that something momentous was about to happen in the polity.
Granted, the APC were glad to have his endorsement and add his voice to the coalition for change – so they beat the bush path to his door. It is the same way today: with the PDP singing his praises for hanging Buhari out to dry. Truth is, the contest for power is brutal business and the protagonists will co-opt any ally to achieve their ends.
The success of the 2015 experiment may have encouraged Obasanjo’s latest intervention. He is clearly a man who believes that he has the power to make and unmake rulers in Nigeria. He is also someone who throws his all into his battle: even if it meant making up with his former deputy. He once swore God won’t forgive him if he did that.
He has made his play with regards to the February 16 election. Now that the battle has been joined, Buhari, Atiku and Obasanjo are all fighting for their political lives.
If PDP wins, Buhari retires to Daura. An APC victory will not only retire Atiku, it would also abruptly terminate Obasanjo’s reign as the ultimate kingmaker. The ruling party would have achieved victory despite his best efforts to undermine them and they would owe him nothing.
But whoever wins it is time to question Obasanjo’s letter-writing pastime. While it is not against the law to speak out against your successors, the convention around the globe is that you give them space to govern and leave the people to decide their fate.
Whether it is in the US, UK, South Africa or Ghana, you don’t find ex-presidents or Prime Ministers engaged in running verbal combat with incumbents.
That is why Barack Obama isn’t jumping down Donald Trump’s throat, why Thabo Mbeki wasn’t haranguing Jacob Zuma whilst he was in power, and why you don’t hear John Kuffuor or John Mahama excoriating Ghanaian President, Nana Akufo-Addo, every now and then.
Hopefully, Baba would give his pen a rest… very soon!
Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Inexplicably our Dapchi girl-child, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.
So UNILAG has a TV station. Excellent.
Ask yourself, since you were born, who in any government has ever really cared or cares about your earning power or the value of the money you work so hard to put on the table for your employees and in your pocket for your family needs and deserved human pleasures? Many currencies have been devalued as a result of war, corrupt diversion of the people’s resources, and even during periods of peace if that peace was not accompanied by justice. Some currencies across the world have suffered even more than our naira has but that can never be a satisfactory excuse to justify the abuse of the principles of economics in favour of the greedy and selfish in Nigeria’s politics, banking and business circles.
Indeed this fall in the naira over the decades, amounting to a 3670% fall is due to misapplied principles and poor development strategies by bad and ignorant politicians and military personnel, all not dedicated enough to public good or knowledgeable enough in governance to hold public office and public trust. In short, politics, banking and business have abandoned the Nigerian citizenry. This has collectively resulted in a free fall of the currency, plunging over 70% below the poverty line, pauperizing and reducing the economic power of the citizenry. All this while they, the perpetrators wallow in stolen but stable foreign currencies made stable by the caring and hard work of other countries’ leading citizens. In those countries, there are enough good leaders who put their currency, country and citizenry needs over and above their personal ambition and greed. This has allowed their own countries and citizens to survive relatively intact.
Nigerians must never agree to the fake news that their plight as Nigerians living without even basic 20th Century amenities like power, sanitation, water, education, health, pothole free roads available in larger quantity and better quality in every other African country, is divine or of their own making. Politicians rig elections, not citizens. Politicians recruit thugs, not citizens. Politicians steal ballot box, not citizens. We must never forget that in spite of the problems visited on us politically by the colonialists who handed us a rigged election and a deliberately divided country, they also handed us a strong currency, one which was also strong when we changed to naira. I remember buying $1.5: N1 in 1976 before the 50 year season of locusts which valued foreign currency above all else carelessly devalued our naira in order to pay government bills with less and less foreign exchange. Today I buy at N367: $1. What measure of economic testimony is that to a lifetime of work?
The economist Chike Obi is reported to have said that it is essential for the naira to be devalued further to assist the economic recovery. Further devaluation will rubbish any salary increase negotiated with government and will further pauperise millions. In keeping with Buhari’s single-handed but much opposed principle of saving the naira as the currency is the pride of a nation, the government has however taken the view that the panic and speculation and corruption driven criminal 2015 devaluation to as low as N400:$1 and slight recovery was more than enough devaluation. The absolutely evil machinations of many bankers, economists, politicians and military adventurists in power which have brought the naira to this low level during my life time of working since 1970 when I first earned money as a demonstrator in anatomy in University of Ibadan quite certainly crippled me and my medical business, halving our income in foreign exchange terms and paralyzing our ability to purchase dollar valued equipment to uplift Nigerians with cutting edge medical equipment. That equipment is way out of our reach now the naira is toilet paper and single digit loans are impossible or finally given at nearly 30% and bribes are demanded in some banks or bank charges are added later on after published loan rates are approved. Now most of our incomes are burnt in the generators to maintain power, just like for many millions who did not steal a kobo or misappropriate the people’s wealth.
Instead of allowing the foreign exchange coming into the CBN to be stolen, misused, it appears that Buhari and presumably the CBN, have used a good part of the funds to stabilize the naira, though the CBN is not an incorruptible saint judging by the humongous wealth of some of its ex-directors seeking to be governors. Will such people not demand a huge return on the funds spend on the election? And has CBN been audited?
I do not hear of any plans by any incoming politicians to improve the naira value. Devalue the naira, devalue Nigerians, devalue Nigeria.
In 2019, the vote of the under 40s can swing the election in favour of a completely different candidate and party. Our 18-40 year-olds, comprising 60% of the electorate, should strategise to take the electoral power, stop being sidelined, stop sidelining themselves, stop taking bribes for votes, stop offering themselves as thugs or cannon-fodder and vote with the conscience and not stomach. Nigeria can be given a systemic political shockwave sweeping away much of the water hyacinth blocking its development.
Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.
This was the week the humdrum 2019 election campaigns came alive.
First, it was the opposition gloating over President Muhammadu Buhari’s performance during the NTA town hall programme ‘The Candidates,’ where he took questions in company of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
The consensus of the critics was that the president was clueless on most subjects he was asked to address – leaving Osinbajo to helpfully spring forward with illuminating answers. In fact, the Vice President’s interventions became too frequent that the anchor, Kadaria Ahmed, had to interject that Buhari ‘can speak for himself.’
Supporters of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, were all over social media sharing memes supposedly of leading All Progressives Congress (APC) figures looking stricken at the responses of their principal.
While the ‘Atikulators’ were still licking their chops in anticipation of what would happen at the forthcoming presidential debate, the ruling party’s campaign train berthed in Lokoja to a stunning welcome by another massive crowd. But what was news on social media was the image of the president tripping on the wing of his babanriga.
This was quickly celebrated by his foes as a ‘collapse’ by reason of ill-health. The APC twitter account soon hit back with an image of Barack Obama tripping on a public stage while still in office as US president. The message? The young also fall!
But even the most quick-witted of presidential defenders must have been stumped by what came next. Before a packed stadium in Warri, Delta State, Buhari while handing a flag to the APC’s governorship candidate, Great Ogboru, referred to him as ‘presidential candidate’! When a nearby official corrected him, he said ‘senatorial candidate’, before finally getting it right as gubernatorial or ‘governortorial’ candidate – depending on what you heard.
I am sure that even APC diehards with a sense of humour would have found the incident amusing, after getting over their initial embarrassment.
It was a gift from heaven to the opposition hordes starved of something to beat the president over the head with. The videos went viral with accompanying commentary that it was further evidence of the man’s unsuitability for the office he seeks.
So how much will Buhari’s public speaking skills or his being prone to gaffes affect his chances? Will they became the game-changers at this election? Not likely, if you ask me.
The jury is still out as to the impact of these debates. Around the world we have seen that they can tip things one way or the other in tight races. They can also help introduce upstart challengers to the electorate in dramatic fashion.
But that is not the case in this election. Buhari and Atiku are figures whom Nigerians are fairly familiar with. Both the president’s supporters and opponents also know he is no debater. In 2011, when he showed up for one such event he was outshone by the dazzling performance of Ibrahim Shekarau who was the candidate of the then All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).
In spite of Shekarau’s oratory, he was a mere footnote at those polls dominated by Goodluck Jonathan and Buhari – two men not noted for their oratorical skills.
In environments such as ours, these debates are mere elite entertainment with little influence on electoral outcomes. The market woman who is going to vote Buhari or Atiku would not be doing so because of the candidates’ gift of gab, but based on more mundane factors.
So, we come to the gaffes. Up till date there’s a standing joke that PDP supporters entertain themselves with. They claim that at a press conference called late in 2014 to introduce his running mate, Buhari referred to Osinbanjo as ‘Osinbade’!
I am sure there were other gaffes made by the man during that electoral cycle, which people no longer remember. Depend on it that he would mangle a few more names before this campaign season is done. What is important is that, just as it had little or no impact in 2015, it’s won’t change much this time.
You only need to look at examples elsewhere to understand the limit to the damage gaffes can do. Ronald Reagan was one of America’s most popular presidents in the last four decades, but he was also a gaffe machine.
George W. Bush often stumbled from error to error – mangling syntax in the process. As for the incumbent US president Donald Trump, the less said the better. I am sure if you typed ‘gaffe’ in Google search, the image of the president would pop up! But in spite of the outrageous things he spews out of his mouth, his base of support remains rock solid.
British Prime Minister Theresa May goofed at her party’s last conference and one of her predecessors, Gordon Brown, sometimes had to have his foot extracted from his mouth.
I understand that the opposition has to do what it must do – which is hurl at Buhari whatever they think can damage him. Unfortunately for them, in the president they are confronted with one of those political foes that are difficult to handle.
They are polarising figures who are loved with as much passion as they are hated. Those who love them do so warts and all; those who despise them would remain that way even if they are transformed into angels.
Reagan, in his day, was nicknamed in the media “the Teflon President,” because of public perceptions that he was never tarnished by the controversies that arose during his administration.
According to the Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, who coined the phrase, and the Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz, the epithet referred to Reagan’s ability to “do almost anything wrong and not get blamed for it.”
He was never respected for his intellect – indeed many in the chattering classes viewed him as very shallow. He was notorious for dozing off during cabinet meetings. But despite his well-advertised shortcomings he had some of the highest popularity ratings of any US president ever.
Just like Buhari, Reagan was an old man – almost 70 when he took office and was 78 when he left – and this was blamed for his struggles. In the last few days as the president went from poor town hall outing to campaign ground stumble, his critics started raising old questions about his age.
These were the same questions he was confronted with in 2015. Back then he was running against a man in his 50s – so the contrast was stark. This time, one of two old men – Buhari, 76, or Atiku 72 – would be elected president come February 16. Based on existing parameters they are the only ones that stand a chance. Their parties are also not about to substitute them. So, our choices are set in stone for now.
You would expect that it would cause us to leave age and move on to other things. However, this is a campaign where serious issues have become non-issues, so age has been thrust to the fore again.
Any fair discussion about age should address the fact that Atiku is also in his 70s. He may look like he’s in better health than Buhari, but the long term fitness of a septuagenarian is not something you can bet a bank on.
Recently, an attempt by a BBC reporter, Mayeni Jones, to raise the age question with the PDP flagbearer had him protesting about people discriminating against him because of his age. He said he had not stopped younger people from running. So, I suspect that this will not be comfortable territory even for Atiku.
Which safely leads me to conclude that this election will not be decided by factors like debates, gaffes and age. You can also discount any serious discussion of issues like security, corruption or the economy.
It would boil down, as often as is the case, to the personalities of the leading candidates. Over the years Buhari’s selling point has been the public belief that he’s honest and straightforward. The crowds baying ‘Sai Baba’ won’t be too bothered if tomorrow he mistakenly hands the APC flag to the President of Ghana!
As for Atiku, the best the opposition can say is that he’s the anti-Buhari: energetic, a democrat and advocate of restructuring. But the other side of being the anti-Buhari is to be branded the poster boy for sleaze.
For years he’s been struggling to separate himself from the tag of corruption hung on his neck by his foes. He would require the skills of a political Houdini to successfully deodorise himself before the electorate in just four weeks.
Atiku Abubakar’s surprise trip to the United States is a public relations coup for him personally and for his party. 
His inability to enter the US over the past 12 years has been a cloud over his head and a reference point for those who accuse him of wrongdoing. He has been able to strike off one negative and deny the ruling APC a major weapon of attack.
What I find especially impressive is the fact that details of the trip were so closely guarded and were not made public until the team was landing at Dulles Airport. It was stunning because there was no certainty that he even had a visa and thoughts that the visit would actually happen had receded in the public space.
While the trip lasts, the feel-good factor would help to energise his base. But I don’t see many defecting to his side because he finally entered Washington D.C. Crucially, I doubt whether this close to the elections there are still many undecided voters who would be sufficiently impressed by the fact that he finally got an American visa.
Unlike the 2015 polls when so much was made about the influence of Obama and the Americans on the polls, any suggestion that there could be external influence that may significantly affect the February 16 outcome, would be gross exaggeration.
To all intents this was at best a meet-and-greet trip – nothing for the PDP to get too rapturous about and nothing for the APC to mourn over.
Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Unfortunately our Dapchi girl, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released and still remains under the threat of death.
Who is afraid of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN)J? The trial or non-trial of the CJN will create an unnecessary dust storm or is it s smoke screen?
Power failure is not our lot. It is the result of a plot to keep Nigerians busy existing so we cannot interrogate the huge failure of our government to provide more power to meet the needs of the nation without resort to hyper-expensive and debilitating generator power.
I had the privilege of visiting Nike Art Gallery in Lekki, Lagos, during the last week. The layout is amazing, rising four floors to a peak, each floor packed, and I mean packed, with a treasure trove of artworks covering all known genres. From the courtyard and its array of peculiar iron welded seats, human and animal shapes to the backyard. From the front doors to the ceiling, the space exudes some of the finest pieces created by our artists of all ages. The colours are an eye-full everywhere you look and the sizes vary from tiny recycled key rings which could easily have become earrings made out of recycled and processed plastic to giant beaded works depicting the Chibok girls looking despondent and abandoned in all their forlorn suffering. Lagos traffic is well represented. The naughtily immortal Fela has a huge multidimensional foot print, face print and quotes from his songs print and the classic depiction of the beauty of the female form is most strikingly exemplified by the ten or so large brightly painted depictions of an ode to the large size in range of female form at the very top of the pyramid of artistic wonders. I have known the one and only Nike – Chief Dr Mrs Nike Okundaye for more than 30 years. She has always been, maximally energetic and you should see her dancing with her team. I have yearned all this while to visit the museum which I found a delight of indescribable joy. It is a carefully tended oasis of dense knowledge and beauty in the midst of our very rough sea of those unable by self-imposed restrictions and work schedules or just plain unappreciative of the arts. All who enter the portals will come away enriched, enlightened and desirous of picking something up. Unfortunately I could only afford two different catalogues which I purchased for my NGO, Educare Trust, for the youth to understand the value and quality of artistic expression and end-products possible from recycling paper, bottle tops, bottles, metal objects et cetera. This Nike Art Gallery should be on the ‘TTD’ Things To Do list of everyone in and out of Lagos to get a synopsis of the Nigerian Art world under one roof and at one sitting. There is a legion of lizards somewhere in the gallery, I will not tell you where. Please go and visit and discover where the lizards are.
What you see displayed is less than 10 percent of the actual quantity of artwork in the gallery. All around you see paintings stored against walls and squeezed between other exhibits each piece begging for a space on a wall. We must do what is done in other countries and develop our private and public Arts and Science Museum and Exhibition footprint. Corporate Nigeria would do well to get behind efforts like that described above of Nike Arts Gallery to help fund the expansion and accommodation of all the accumulated artworks in one or several galleries for the enlightenment of the youth nationwide. This must be coupled to increased student traffic from schools and universities while encouraging more tourist visitors.
The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway still under construction has after a two-week respite to allow free movement has reverted to its former depressing narrowing of the lanes to two with disastrous consequences on the travelling public. There is no effort by contractor or supervising government to ease the suffering of the citizens in the massive volume of traffic in those areas, with 5-6 lanes trying to shrink to two lanes. Nigerians did not cause the delay in the construction but it seems that the contractors do not care what happens to the citizens. This type of action must be challenged.
Hurray as a result of the wonderful work of exposing N7 billion fraud annually at JAMB by Professor Oloyede, there has been a fall in the cost of JAMB forms.
What politicians in positions they themselves identified during pre-election campaigns as ‘Opportunities to Serve’ in National Assembly (NASS) and government have failed to learn from history is that as often ‘fraudulently elected’ members of the board of ‘The Business called Nigeria’, their preoccupation with selfish status quo and greed-driven Parasitic Profit-taking from ‘The Business called Nigeria’ has prevented progress of ‘The Business called Nigeria’. Also they place too much faith in ‘Unitary’, a militaristic, autocratic, one-size-must-fit-all the 365 ethnic populations. The truth that ‘diversity and differential growth were much more federal even before federalism came to be bastardised and bring much faster development’ has been suppressed, opposed and vilified. Decentralization or deregulation will allow new businesses to spring up and new directions to be explored beyond the conservative elite’s narrow interpretation of the business of governance.
Urgently Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 elections -SDG 16.
Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Unfortunately our Dapchi girl, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released and still remains under the threat of death. many IDPS and herder victims will have a lousy Christmas.
The poem below was delivered by me at the Christmas Music Concert Trenchard Hall, Ibadan on December 18, 2018.
Congratulations
The labour of our heroes past
Shall never be in vain.
Who is your first hero past?
Audience reply please
Because of who’s labour
Are you here today?
MY MOTHER
The birth of CHRIST
Through MARY’S Labour pain
Is our gain
But a forgotten labour pain
Take Christmas home
let it REMIND us of the suffering of OUR mother
Birthday is the most dangerous day
In the life of mother and baby even more-so on Christ’s birthday
So be grateful and happy
And say ‘Thank you’ again to Mother
For giving you, a sister or a brother
This year there is a growing fear
And even a tear
That this CHRISTMAS
Will have a CRITICAL mass
Of very hungry citizens
EATING 00010001
WITH NO CHRISTMAS
Shelter, food, clothes or money
this is not funny
No comfort for 4million IDPs
some near your house and home
The unemployed and even employed
Their stomachs grumble
As they fight the pangs of hunger
Extracting sorrow
For today, Christmas Day and tomorrow
More than ever before
We need to share
Show we care
we all have something to spare
even if it is just a Happy Christmas smile
Become a Christmas wise person
From the East and everywhere
offering gifts
Follow the suffering star
Open every door
Bring out unneeded clothes
extra utensils, good old toys
for motherless girls and boys
Food, money,
a smile bathed in honey,
say hello, please and thank you
Do some good..
You know you should
You know you can
Help a child, woman and man
Do you know that your driver, domestic help
All need some help
share some TLCare
IF YOU DARE
The needy stranger is nearer than you think
-do you know the pain in your friend’s blink
Do you know any one’s bank account
Exactly what amount/ Is in your friend’s pocket
Poverty may not show on the face
buy a box of sweets and biscuits
put them in the car
send some as Christmas gifts every day
to the junction and where the needy children are
we do not have time to think we hardly blink
listen to the world
COPY Christ’s GOOD
LIKE WE KNOW WE SHOULD
The world plans ahead
or we’ll all be dead
drowned in plastic oceans
burnt or frozen in climate change
turn from plastic to reusable glass bottles
Save the trees Give up wrapping presents this CHRISTMAS
Cut down, save and recycle your Christmas cards and envelopes
into school artwork and jotters
Reduce, Recycle, Reuse,
Stop Single Use Plastic
Bottle, straws, party cutlery, shopping bags
Refuse to make more refuse
Chewing gum is plastic
Why line your stomach with chewable elastic? Who will be the next victim
of Boko Haram, herders, fraud, theft?
YOU SAY ’GOD FORBID’
GOD DID FORBID
BUT WE DO THE FORBIDDEN ANYWAY
Where do we turn FOR PEACE -right or left
And there is the bully in your home and school
The playground can be designated a battlefield,
with real casualties..
sticks, belts, pebbles, stones,
catapult and elastic band
Do not care where they land
aiming lollypop and broom sticks, pellets and stones
at BULL’S EYE -our child’s eye
Blinding her for life, GOD FORBID
GOD DID FORBID
BUT WE DO THE FORBIDDEN ANYWAY
The dirty slap blinds the eye, deafens the ear
concusses the brain,
STOP your children heading footballs
or the repeated small brain damage/ will head them to the doctor
or the bottom of the class , last
Do you know someone planning a baby?
Remember this secret
A TABLET A DAY OF FOLIC ACID a day
Keeps brain abnormalities away
Correction
it works ONLY IF STARTED BEFORE CONCEPTION
Christ was born TO SAVE OUR SOULS
BUT WE MUST SAVE EACH OTHER’S BODIES
BETWEEN NOW AND NEXT CHRISTMAS
PS if you get a text message Mechahnyia, what does it mean? It is Merry Christmas And Happy New Year -2019.
Urgently Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.
Easily given to ceremony than substance, it is no surprise that we seem carried away yet again by the enactment recently of the “Not-Too-Young-To-Run” Act. By “we”, I refer to citizens of my generation and the millennials, many of whom probably view the development as no more than a tacit official acknowledgement of “our own turn to eat”.
True, there can be no downplaying the import of lowering the age ceiling for the the highest office in the land at a time the geriatric seem reluctant to relinguish the leadership stool. Now, a 35-year-old is anointed to contest the presidency against President Muhammadu Buhari next year, as against the old minimum of 40. Just as a 25-year-old is fit to become member of state assembly or the National Assembly.
Of course, this change, championed by the “Not-Too-Young-To-Run” movement, was undoutedly inspired by electoral hurricanes outside our shores in recent years that swept young Turks into power.
At 39, Emmanuel Macron emerged the youngest President in the history of France last year. The same age as Leo Varadkar, the Irish Prime Minister.
In Austria, 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz is Chancellor.
In Canada, 43-year-old Justin Trudeau emerged Prime Minister. Thirty-seven-year-old Jacinda Ardern is New Zealand Prime Minister. Volodymyr Groysman was only two years older when he emerged Ukraine’s youngest ever prime minister. 38-year-old Emil Dimitriev took over in Macedonia. His age-mates – Carlos Alvarado Quesanda and Jüri Ratas – are leaders of Costa Rica and Estonia respectively.
Back home, with a demographic of under-35 accounting for more than 65 percent of national population of over 180m, at no time in history have the Nigerian youths been this reminded of the power of electoral veto within their reach.
But let it be noted that opportunity is not exactly the same thing as purpose. The easy conjecture is to assume today that the prospects of merely having public offices overtaken by the youths is all that is required to cure the obvious leadership deficit afflicting the country. Nothing could be more futile. Weighing into the raging debate, Sam Omatseye, fellow columnist and inimitable connoisseur of poetry and history, cautioned against toasting a mere “paper victory” in his column.
I would rather add that the new Act would not be in vain only if the youths themselves see this as an impetus to frame the next agenda: mobilizing and driving a new campaign to redefine the purpose of politics as service and not a transaction. This, to me, is at the core of leadership crisis bedeviling the nation.
Truth be told, what has always ailed our politics is not age but the mindset we bring to electoral contest. The issue is not the age of our politicians but the age of our politics. Azikiwe, Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello chanced upon the national stage in their 30s. The second generation of leaders consisting the military faction seized and exercised power also in their 20s and 30s.
In terms of the integrity test, those found to have looted the public till over the years did so in their prime years. We can then see that youthfulness is hardly an inhibitor of the itchy finger.
So, if we all agreed that the nation has under-achieved relative to her potential in almost six decades of independence, it is only logical that the failure be attributed substantially to the leadership recruitment and training template adopted.
Now sorely needed is a new politics driven by values. I share the view that perhaps the easiest take-off point should be the resolve of good people to take more than a casual interest in politics in their local communities, thereby helping to crowd out the political hoodlums. If sustained, we will sooner than later help force a new ethic that ensures politics is no longer the vocation of men without verifiable second address or the rehab centre of women of easy virtue.
Indeed, more than any time in history, the time has come for us to see a nexus between votes bartered for few banknotes before thumb-printing on the election day and the subsequent incidence of public treasury being stolen by those who bribed their way to power.
But the thieving politician is just as culpable as members of his constituency who put them under pressure by making unreasonable financial demands. Few years ago, a popular senator from one of the South-west states narrated his “ordeal” to this writer.
To make a visit to his constituency every week from his Abuja base, he required at least whopping N5m to cater for all manner of requests ranging from someone doing “remembrance party” for their ancestor who died last century, to someone taking a wife. So much that he often returned to his Abuja station the next Monday broke.
His “coping strategy”?: “Whenever I’m unable to raise such amount of money,” he said, “I simply avoid going home and so it is cheaper for me then to fly to London to spend the weekend.”
Of course, there is no prize for guessing where the senator had to source the slush money from to indulge his constituents weekly.
Again, how many of us can genuinely volunteer for any form of civic act like joining in mobilizing more political participation in our respect local communities without expecting instant gratification from the resident “political leader”?
I think the first step to sanitizing political contest is to disincentivize public office. So long as the unemployed graduate realizes that a federal legislator, for instance, carts home N13.5m monthly as “running costs” apart from the documented N750,000 salary, the more intense his envy and the greater his desperation to have the lawmaker displaced in the next election round and claim their plum seat.
Of course, displacing the current order cannot be achieved overnight. It requires some activism of sorts which the youth themselves can help champion, bearing in mind that it is only when we have men and women of conscience in the position of decision that whatever is available is judiciously applied for the need of the majority, not the greed of a privileged few.
Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Unfortunately our Dapchi girl, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released and still remains under the threat of death.
Boko Haram is still launching vicious and costly surprise attacks in its traditional killing ground almost with lethal impunity and mounting deaths among our gallant military personnel. This is unfortunate and suggests the need for moving more troops into the area which has repeatedly been attacked before.
Is it not strange that we shout about the murderous Boko Haram while across the country our very own politicians are recruiting, paying and encouraging thugs to set up a terrorist spots near you or me? And they think that is OK. Well it is not OK. No Nigerian should be harassed, terrorised, maimed or murdered for a vote. We expect ‘POLITICAL THUG’ whistleblowers to reveal guilty politicians. ’Political’ does not diminish the crime of murder and grievous bodily harm, committed in the name of politics and the political funders are murderers, criminals and terrorists themselves as their agenda is to cause death and subvert the will of the people. This is clearly a coup plot and should be punished as such. This curse visited upon us as politics must stop.
There has been no improvement in the traffic jam on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. The spokesperson of the contractors should come out and tell the client, Nigerians, exactly why we are having such mega suffering while on the road. It is not fair to punish the travelling public in their quest for making a living or fulfilling family obligation because of huge neglect by the government machinery to address the problems of movement. What can we expect when in Lagos the trailer-driven gridlock in Apapa access is causing a huge disaster and danger to Apapa residents especially at night when the security operatives have withdrawn and ‘lights are out’? It is quite unbelievable that Apapa, a highbrow suburb of Lagos has been brought to its knees by external forces of politics and infrastructural collapse in and around the Apapa Port complex -all beyond its control.
So Senate has approved $1billion for Ajaokuta, a 40-year project destroyed by the machinations of governments over time. Is the equipment not also 40 years old and ready for the dustbin of corruption history? Let SERAP and BUDGit, EnoughIsEnough, EFCC and ICPC start their due diligence and monitoring pre-emptively and proactively. We are tired of the predictable lament to be expected in 1-2 years that the money disappeared into thin air, bought inferior machinery, was diverted for season’s greetings etc. Such a scenario must be nipped in the bud by pre-emptive anticorruption strategies. Nigeria cannot afford Ajaokuta to remain as a conduit for corruption forever as in the past. Will economic steel ever be produced?
The vice presidential debates are a breath of fresh air amidst infighting and distrust. The debate is hugely valuable in finally pointing all the political attention towards the policies that have ruined and those which could resurrect our society which is so traumatised that we have our own share of the migrant crisis. It is interesting to note the ability to speak grammar and analyse and proffer solutions to the questions the citizens have asked but no one has bothered to answer for them. At least the millions of viewers can see how their favoured candidates perform or under-perform. I think there should be debates at state level for governors and National Assembly (NASS) and state assemblies. At least the politicians are at last forced to think about how to provide real solutions to our myriad problems in NIGERIA. The speakers had their day on the air, but not all the candidates shone. Some should never even try for the office. Vice presidents are usually sidelined or under political house arrest in Nigeria so as not to outshine the incumbent president, so it is good to hear them speaking in case we never hear from them again.
We hope that the presidential candidates will also have a similar debate.
Disgracefully it is in this week that the budget for 2019 will be presented by the president to the NASS. So who and what were responsible for this ridiculous but chronically recurrent delay in budget presentation. Following the wicked political games around the last budget, it is unlikely that the 2019 budget will even be implementable before December 2019. Disgraceful.
We are all guilty of increasing plastic pollution as we all use and abuse the plastic-ness of things, so easy to throw away –’Disposability’ but forget the other property – ‘Longevity’ of plastic unless it is the bio-degradable variety. In the short term the longevity of plastic can and must be exploited as ‘Reusability’ to reduce plastic waste today by ‘Keeping It Longer’ for use in your possession in your home, work, play place, and travelling between them. You can also find ‘non-plastic alternatives’ to “reduce new replacement plastic’. Every country and every citizen should know that the world has decided to halt, and if possible reverse, the ‘The Plastic Epidemic’ by Reducing, Reusing/Recycling, and Rescuing Waste Plastic- Stop straws, plastic bags and bottles, ocean plastic, chewing gum. You have a personal role. Choose to pollute chose to reduce plastic pollution in your environment with your actions, instructions, connections and example within your family, friends etc.
It is amusing watching government spokesmen discomfit the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with allegations that it is playing politics with the blood of gallant Nigerian soldiers who fell to the firepower of Boko Haram insurgents during their recent raid at Metele village in Borno State.
A choice characterisation was to say they were ‘dancing on the graves’ of the unfortunate soldiers. How exactly did the PDP do this? By criticising the administration’s management of the long-drawn war against the insurgents in the Northeast.
In 2014 when roles were reversed and the Goodluck Jonathan administration was battling unsuccessfully to contain the Boko Haram hordes, it was the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) chiefs who used to excoriate the government as ‘clueless.’
Its candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, a retired army general was pumped up as the tough guy with the know-how to bring the sect to heel. Back then, presidential spokesmen would make the same condescending noises about not politicising everything – especially national tragedies.
In the end, insecurity became one of the key issues that undermined Jonathan in the North and cemented his profiling as weak and incompetent.
Four years down the line, Buhari has grappled with the Boko Haram challenge with a measure of success. The group’s so-called caliphate with headquarters in Gwoza is now history, while all the local governments it once controlled have since been liberated.
That said, the sect as it showed with its recent deadly sortie in Metele, is still capable of launching devastating attacks against lonely outposts. Its alliance with Islamic State (IS) ensures that it can access finance, weapons and training to continue its reign of terror.
This reality has caused untold embarrassment to the government whose leading lights have been in a hurry to declare the insurgents ‘technically defeated.’ They didn’t learn any lessons from the experience of former US President George W. Bush who, famously, prematurely declared victory in the post-Iraq war conflict in 2003.
Barely weeks after posing triumphantly on an aircraft carrier with a ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner as backdrop, guerrilla warfare intensified – totally demolishing any notion that the Americans had successfully pacified the country.
Buhari and the APC may not have knocked out Boko Haram, but the most uncharitable of persons cannot deny that the Islamists – even with IS support – are not the force they were three or four years ago.
Back in 2015 all talk about insecurity revolved round the activities of the terrorists in the Northeast. Violent crimes of other types had not reached a crisis as to become critical in determining the outcome of the elections.
Two months to the next elections, insecurity remains firmly on the national agenda. Indeed, the security challenges have metastasized. While Boko Haram may be down, banditry and cattle rustling have been on the up in places like Zamfara where even leading members of the traditional leadership institution are being suspected of being in league with the criminals.
Until a few months ago, killings by herdsmen left scores of Nigerian villages desolate as the rampaging pastoralists vented their anger over lost cattle or denial of access for indiscriminate grazing. One of the most gripping images of this year remains the scenes of bereaved women weeping uncontrollably at the mass burials for victims of the killings in Benue.
After a series of missteps, the government seems to have come to grips with the problems by taking drastic steps such that killer herdsmen have since been displaced from newspaper front pages. Similarly, the bandits who forced Zamfara Governor Abdulaziz Yari to throw in the towel as chief security officer of the state, have suddenly become quiescent.
Even the Niger Delta which was troubled in the early days of the administration, has been pleasantly still. It has been ages since faceless bombers attacked isolated pipelines or crude oil production platforms. All the militants ‘generals’ with flamboyant nom de guerre have gone deathly silent.
But whatever successes the administration might claim on these other fronts is greatly undermined by the uncontrollable spread of kidnapping across the country. Whatever it has done to tamp down banditry in Zamfara and rein in killer herders, has not had any effect in discouraging abductors.
A few years ago I described this crime as Nigeria’s latest growth industry. That description is still very apt today. We are all witnesses to the gripping testimonies of witnesses at the ongoing trial of alleged billionaire kidnapper Evans.
Everyday there is a harrowing story by some victim. A few days ago, a House of Assembly candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Nasarawa State, David Ayele, was snatched as he left his home in Lafia. He was rescued in Pandam, Qua’an Pan Local Government of Plateau State after paying a ransom of N2 million to regain his freedom.
On Thursday, a Lagos High Court, sentenced a man who abducted the sister of the Managing Director of Emzor Pharmaceuticals, to 15 years imprisonment.
In the last two weeks there have been unending tales of people kidnapped while travelling between towns in Ekiti and Ondo States. Some of the victims even paid the ransom demanded by their abductors who still went ahead to kill them.
Nobody is safe. The pioneer kidnappers targeted foreign oil workers as part of the Niger Delta struggle. But when the expatriates fled, the militants started targeting the wealthy in their midst.
Today, it is not only the reasonably affluent that should worry. Kidnappers target even the poor: anyone that has a family that is sufficiently concerned about their welfare is fair game. A while back, former Kaduna State Governor, Balarabe Musa, raised the alarm about poor almajiris being seized from isolated farms and held for ransom as low as N3, 000!
Some of these accounts may seem like distant, impersonal – almost fictional tales. That is until it happens to you. In March this year, my family became victims of kidnappers. My younger brother, who is a pastor, was travelling with his wife to Abuja for a church event.
On the outskirts of Abuja, at a point called Kwaita Junction, gunmen suddenly opened fire on cars travelling on the road. Vehicles screeched to a halt and frightened occupants fled into the bushes – into the welcoming hands of kidnappers.
That was to be the beginning of four of the most harrowing days of my life. I contacted a very senior Police officer who is very knowledgeable about the activities of the kidnappers who operate in the axis between Abuja and Kaduna.
I equally reached another senior officer in the State Security Service (SSS) who assured me they were tracking the kidnappers and would soon catch up with them. Somehow his words rang hollow.
In my discussion with the police officer I was struck by the seeming helplessness of law enforcement confronted by a criminal activity that has reached epidemic proportions. He told me frankly that they always advise the families to negotiate first and secure the release of their loved ones while the police then chase after the abductors.
We followed his counsel and paid a ransom. Luckily for us, the story had a good ending as my brother and his wife, along with another woman who was abducted with them, were freed on the evening of the fourth day – after difficult and dramatic negotiations with erratic gunmen.
My brother told me that while they were being marched through the forest at night after being captured, the gunmen grumbled bitterly about their conditions – with some saying if they had a job that paid as low as N25, 000 they would prefer it to roaming around in the bush like animals.
I have never accepted poverty as an excuse for criminality. Millions of our people live below the poverty line yet they have not succumbed to a life of crime. That said, there are the weaker elements for whom economic pressures would always become a trigger to veer off the straight and narrow path.
It is no surprise, therefore, that we are witnessing this upsurge in kidnapping coinciding with the recession of the past three years. The abductions are not tied to any religious or political ends: they are simply business transactions.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, this is one very attractive business where for very little outlay you reap a mindboggling return on investment. Those who snatched my brother started negotiations at N15 million but they got nowhere near that. In some other cases, the pay-out can be truly bountiful.
For as long as the economy continues to struggle, we will have a problem with abductions for ransom. Even if Nigeria becomes an economic Eldorado, greed would still make kidnapping an attractive proposition because of the returns. We don’t have enough policemen in Nigeria to combat freelance kidnappers now operating at will North, South, East and West – or those they are likely to spawn.
Ever since the campaigns I have been waiting for the major parties to make statements recognising the gravity of the situation and offer policy suggestions on a matter that is affecting all categories of Nigerians – rich or poor, child or adult.
Hopefully, we can start a serious discussion on the changing face of insecurity in today’s Nigeria. The focus of the campaigns thus far is indicative of how out-of-touch some of those canvassing votes are concerning the issues that truly matter to the average person.