The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Our Girls; Expressway disaster – Vote out this NASS

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

    The president should explain to the country why he has not accent to the new Electoral Act. Will any new law be effective in this coming election? We have expended a lot of hot air on this and the Petroleum Industry Bill. We need closure.

    NASS staff strike, ke? It demonstrates clearly the problem with Nigeria. If those at the heart of an indisputably greedy National Assembly, (NASS) could not be trusted to ensure that their own staff get paid as and when due by whoever should have paid them regularly. I wish that the people would follow suit and ‘strike’ against all members of NASS in the coming election in 2019 and ensure that every single one of the current crop of NASS members is removed and replaced by non-past governors. The Senate should not be converted into an ‘immunity from prosecution’ retirement home for tired governors and serial political office holders. I and tens of thousands of others have just suffered a total of eight hours travelling to and from Lagos, a four-hour maximum travel in normal times. This trauma was inflicted on me and millions of fellow travellers this last Saturday and Sunday, only because, NASS when given the opportunity to serve the country in an already laid out manner, deliberately held meetings and budget review sessions in which someone actually decided to suggest NASS take steps to deny adequate funding already put in the last 2018 budget for the sole purpose of finishing the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

    For the traveller daily ensnarled in the construction constricted areas, we can blame Julius Berger or even RCC for not taking note of the volume of traffic when restricting access. But the buck stops at the desk of the NASS for the contractor delays and failure to provide adequately for the easy passage of the tens of thousands of vehicles daily.  All this work would have been finished last year or latest mid-2018 if NASS had shown the slightest sense of responsible behaviour when it was asked to fund the remaining part of the road in the 2018 budget. NASS’ complete disregard for the travelling public along that heavily travelled artery should be rewarded by the citizens’ complete disregard for NASS members seeking public office. The NASS action in the matter of delaying and denying expressway funding should be recalled in full detail and acted upon by any and everyone who has suffered or knows someone who has suffered on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway during the last year, numbering in their millions. I repeat, no NASS member deserves a return vote to a seat in the red or green chamber judging from their lack of support for the completion of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

    Nineteen drowned in boat mishap Chewuru in Kwara. Sorrow is deep but Nigerians must get used to the fact that lifejackets are cheap. We have lost too many to drowning across Africa this year.

    There is nothing new in the ‘New’ Public Buildings Maintenance Policy. I am a witness that routine maintenance according to a well-oiled step by step plan and diary was done routinely on government residences in the colonial times when a seven year cycle of painting and general upgrade maintenance was performed on government quarters and Public Works Department (PWD) was available for other maintenance work during the intervening period. Short term greed and perhaps contractor collusion killed it once the colonialists left. Well, I suppose we should be grateful it is back some 40 years after it was killed by high ministry officials but it should never have been changed in the first place.  I wonder where the diary of the seven year cycle of maintenance used in those days is today. It would make interesting reading and a guideline of how things were done correctly in the pre-computer days.

    So during the darkest days of the Abacha Error, not era, when I was invited to give the Obafemi Awolowo Lecture under the chairmanship of Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo and convinced that it would save many lives, I undertook to plead for the extension of the cell-phone to the medical personnel, particularly doctors on duty and nurses estimating that the immediate market would be 3,000,000 subscribers. I considered doing something dramatic like kneeling down and begging on camera but fortunately I did not go that far. If I had, I probably would have been roped in to the infamous ‘coup plot’ begging video. How wrong I was and how wrong were the forces which denied Nigeria and 100m Nigerians the cell-phone for another five years until Obasanjo allowed’ it, kick-starting a communication blitz and a trillion naira business. And so it will be for all the other restrictive policies of a strangulating federal system which was installed to strengthen the head, mafia and government, at the expense of a starved, strangled body – the people.

    Why are suspects held together, kept together, tied together during parades, transported together and then tried together. Are they interrogated together? Separating them from arrest to trial allows for crosschecking statements about an incident under investigation. Isolation from fellow accused is a tried and tested method of establishing the truth without violence or torture.

     

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

  • The wonder called Jubril al-Sudani

    The ‘Cabal’ in Aso Rock don’t always get the credit they deserve. We say the most uncomplimentary things about them when, actually, the guys are geniuses. Over the Jubril Aminu al-Sudani saga, they have gone and outdone themselves.

    Now the whole world is talking about us and comedians on late night American TV shows are making jokes about President Muhammadu Buhari.

    Just think of the breath-taking conception of the Jubril project and the flawless execution. It is unbelievable that Nigerians, long derided as serial bunglers, could have pulled this off.

    God works in mysterious ways but to have created a Jubril who has Buhari’s almost exact physical attributes – such that he can pass for the president without raising curiosity – must be the 8th wonder of the world.

    When I contemplate how many months the Sudanese impostor has been embedded in the Presidential Villa, I break out in cold sweat at night.

    But what I find most impressive is how the Cabal managed to track down this doppelganger in some dark corner of Africa, ready and willing to be pressed into service in Nigeria without much ado. This surely rates as the 9th wonder.

    Credit for that must go to Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu for providing the intelligence. Never mind that not too long ago he was calling leading lights of the Cabal zoo keepers. In the dark, shadowy world of espionage anything can happen: even bitter foes can swap information when conditions permit.

    Remember that shortly before vanishing form these shores Kanu constituted the Biafran Intelligence Services or something in that general direction. With such resources and far-flung network it would have been a piece of cake scooping the CIA, KGB, MOSSAD, SSS, NIA, MI6 and media – Western and local – to what was, until he blew it open, the world’s best kept secret.

    Truly, Jubril is a wonder who deserves an Oscar for his amazing acting skills. He managed in a matter of months to perfectly replicate Buhari’s mannerisms, idiosyncrasies and speech patterns, developed over 75 years without anyone being the wiser.

    Imagine, he successfully fooled members of the Federal Executive Council who regularly interact with him and even sometimes travel overseas with him. He managed to pull wool over the eyes of the likes of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, APC national chairman Adams Oshiomhole, governors and the like.

    Aside Osinbajo, I accept he could have beguiled these other gentlemen because of their irregular interaction with the president. What I find incredible is that Governors Ibikunle Amosun and Rochas Okorocha fell for his tricks! Given that they virtually moved into Aso Rock in pursuit of lost gubernatorial tickets, you would think they would have noticed something fishy.

    Come to think of it, the real Buhari would have simply ordered Oshiomhole to hand the APC tickets to the governors’ chosen ones – given how close they are to him. Only a Sudanese could have been so obdurate, as to be taking orders from a mere party chairman. So, if you needed further evidence that there’s more to this Jubril business than meets the eye, this is it.

    Jubril and the Cabal are a wonder to have successfully procured the cooperation of First Lady Aisha Buhari – a noted straight talker who shoots from the hip and would not have any truck with monkey business.

    Someone who just nearly outed two unnamed powerful men who have grounded her husband’s administration, is not the sort of figure to casually acquiesce in such a grand conspiracy without turning whistle-blower. To have secured her silence is the 10th wonder of the world.

    Let’s not forget that Aisha and the Cabal have not always been the best of pals. Her outburst against them back in the day, forced Buhari to openly assure the international community that her influence was limited to the “other room.” But then in power circles there are no permanent friends or foes, only permanent or common interests.

    Jubril and the Cabal are a wonder because in their rush to install the usurper, they forgot to put in place an exit strategy. Would the man retire to farm life in Daura or would he be shipped back to the Sudan in a crate in 2023 when Buhari’s second term – assuming he wins in 2019 – expires?

    We’ve only been given sketchy outlines of the complicated deal that would keep Jubril in power, presiding over our commonwealth ad infinitum. The only way that would happen is by passing a constitutional amendment that takes away the executive’s two-term limit.

    For this to work, Senate President Bukola Saraki, would have to be co-opted. But I doubt that the man, still embittered at his treatment in APC, would play ball. The sheer prospect of another four years of Buhari, or of Jubril carrying on his policies, would surely have the Kwara strongman grinding his teeth in rage. That would leave the Jubril project in grave danger of implosion. Surely, the Cabal wouldn’t want that.

    But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s still the little matter of 2019 and how the outing of the impostor from the Horn of Africa could affect the outcome of the polls.

    An influential church leader has already preached an explosive sermon on the matter demanding answers. It didn’t matter that Buhari had just told Nigerians in Poland that he was not a clone: it was really him in flesh and blood.

    Rather than douse the fire, the president’s use of the word ‘clone’ inflamed things. The suspicious insist they never raised cloning but talked about an impostor who is in situ in the seat of power running things. All talk of cloning was simply a clever attempt to muddy the waters!

    On social media, diehard believers in the legend of Jubril would have none of the president’s explanations. As one post sagely put it: what do you expect him to say? Did you really think he would admit to being the Sudanese mystery man?

    After digesting the comments, it suddenly dawned on me why over 40 million Nigerians have mental disorders according to the Federal Ministry of Health. But the more this saga rumbles on, the more I am convinced that even this figure is a grievous undercount.

    As for the PDP, it has not come out to say it believes its presidential candidate would be running against a foreign impostor. I suspect that at the right moment it would raise the grave constitutional implications of the matter and call on INEC to declare force majeure.

    What they have said, however, is that the Jubril saga would not have arisen had there been greater openness at a time Buhari was hospitalised in London for over 100 days. Flowing from that, the president is being bashed over the head for making Nigeria the butt of jokes internationally.

    But let me respectfully disagree. Even if there was livestreaming of Buhari’s 100 days in London, people would still believe what they want. And that is not unique to Nigeria.

    America has one of the highest literacy rates in the world but despite their supposed enlightenment, the cancer of racism caused the Birther Movement to thrive for much of Barack Obama’s presidency. One of the key promoters of the suggestion that the US’ first black president might be a foreigner born in Kenya or Indonesia, is the incumbent Donald Trump.

    Even after the official birth certificate showing that Obama was born in Hawaii surfaced, many chose not to believe. Instead, another round of conspiracy theories flared with many carefully scrutinising the document to point out supposed flaws suggesting it was faked.

    As far as 2019 is concerned, I would say that Buhari might just be the luckiest man in politics. Given the state of the economy you would expect his foes to focus on that and the security challenges in different parts of the country to embarrass him.

    Instead, those who say they want to conduct issue-based campaigns are allowing themselves to get sucked into celebrating the Yusuf story in the vain hope that it would somehow hurt the incumbent and the ruling party.

    Unfortunately for them, outlandish stories never toppled anybody in these parts. In the late 80s the activist Tai Solarin got himself into trouble by lending his distinguished voice to the rumour that a certain $2.8billion oil proceeds had evaporated from the federation account. The story was part of the fuel that fired up the SAP riots at the time.

    After he was grilled by a panel of inquiry as to the source of this weighty allegation, he said he picked it up from Ebony magazine. Sadly, there was nothing of the sort ever published by the paper. He equally said he heard it in the Molue bus! The Ibrahim Babangida regime ruled for several years thereafter, while a respected and honourable man was ridiculed and humiliated.

    The opposition can continue offering Nigerians comic relief by giving life to the Yusuf tale by moonlight. But they may wake up on Election Day to discover that they have wasted time chasing shadows and have not offered the electorate a reason to oust the incumbent.

    On the other hand, they could get back to the serious business of discussing the challenges facing our people and make this a competitive race.

    The choice is theirs. They may be presently enjoying the jokes of American comedians Jimmy Kimmel and Trevor Noah, but what matters is who laughs last come February.

  • Our Girls; Water hyacinth; clone? NASS out? population?

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

    Congratulations to Super Falcons for winning the ninth Africa Women Cup of Nations, AWCON. Well deserved.

    A few weeks ago, the Senate and I believe the House of Representatives suspended sitting because the sound system was out. If every Nigerian institution closed for one day or more because of a sound system failure, we should expect nothing for development. Surely the National Assembly, NASS, is still in Nigeria and specifically in Abuja where sound systems are easily available for hire within an hour or two. What a disgraceful example of waste of public trust to the citizens. Meanwhile the destructive activities of herdsmen continue unabated.

    Channels TV carried an item on the Mountaintop University research into the use of the weed known as water hyacinth to make paper. This is very good as the water hyacinth seems to be ravaging all our waterways, hindering boat transportation and obstructing local fishing activities as well as covering large areas of water hindering light and gas exchange altering the eco-environment for fish, algae and other marine life.  If you use a social web research programme like Google, Bing etc, you will find 20 other uses for water hyacinth which you may also champion by informing others in your local area and through your local institutions like universities and polytechnics and schools. A look from the Third Mainland Bridge will attest to the serious nature of this water hyacinth epidemic

    President denies being a clone. Very good. When he is ill, they say he is too ill to rule. When he is well, they he is too well to be himself. Me I do not know o! I have acted old and young people on stage with the help of a little makeup. Medically, the matter is simple. Confirmation of who is who is as easy as a DNA test on the whole family which confirms parentage of the children and closes the case. Surely the whole family was not cloned if anyone was cloned at all. Therefore get that DNA done by an impartial witness.

    We the citizenry must become much more politically active and articulate our expectations of future government policies. We must support only candidates willing to work along the lines we chose as the expected future of the nation. Some suggested lines include support candidates willing to work to get:

    1. Politicians on Grade Level 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 the highest for serving presidents.
    2. Home state to fix the salary and pay it and accommodation since the politician is on posting from the state.  Similarly LGAs can pay the state assembly members
    3. Reduction of ridiculous political salaries and perks SAPing Nigeria dry.
    4. The imposition of sitting allowances
    5. The cancellation of constituency projects and route all development project request in good time through the relevant ministerial budget structure for approval and routine execution by the relevant ministry with no further interference or financial involvement of the NASS chambers
    6. A huge increase in budgets to health and education
    7. A huge increase in FG, state and LGA scholarship and youth empowerment schemes on a scale more in proportion to the student population.
    8. A single house by cutting out one particularly the senate
    9. Insist that judges finish cases before moving on promotion
    10. To put people policies in place

    This sounds like a tall order. However most elections are won or lost utilising only 40 or 45% of the vote. The rest of the votes are unused or unusable if criminally obtained. The legitimate voters dissatisfied with the current big two or three parties can change the political narrative simply by coming out and concentrating or one candidate.

    Really 190 million???? Guesstimated census and now supported by UN! Unfortunately, we are just parrots repeating conjectures and invention of concocted ‘fake’ census figures. Our National Population Commission, NPC has failed to pass the truth and integrity test and any figures will not be believed by the aggrieved. Only the majority is happy to preserve the imposed status quo. Electricity Corporation of Nigeria, ECN, Power Holdings Company of Nigeria, PHCN and successors are expert at what in Nigeria has become known as a ‘Guestimate’, a hyper-inflated imagined bill designed to punish the customer or perhaps force him to pay a bribe. Old NITEL became a super-specialist if you made the mistake of having international calls on your phone.

    We keep boasting that we are 190m people in Nigeria. How? Based on false census figure bloated for politico-ethno-religious malicious reasons since the 50s when the British tampered with the results to precipitate our life-long census problem? Assuming a conservative 20-30% inflation figure, we are probably 150m-ish. If we are actually the figure advertised, our successive leaders, most still alive should hang their heads in collective shame Nigeria’s ‘failure to thrive’ and refusal to meet all our Millennium and Sustainable Developmental Goals milestones allocated by the UN agencies for all countries.

    Does any of the incumbent NASS members deserve to be sent back after they effectively stabbed Nigeria in the heart by messing up the budget year by seven months, and persisting in taking ridiculous and unjustified salaries and perks totally out of proportion to the service, if any, that they may collectively or individually have rendered.

     

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

  • Atiku’s Southeast quandary

    Northern Nigeria is Muhammadu Buhari country – a point he has proved over the last two election cycles. In 2011, running on the platform of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), he garnered the bulk of his 12 million votes there.

    But that was not enough to get him elected president of Nigeria because the CPC was essentially a sectional party without roots down South.

    To be elected president, a candidate – no matter how popular he is in his home region – must take at least one of the zones in the other region. Buhari rectified that in 2015 when by the instrumentality of the All Progressives Congress (APC), he was propelled to power by winning up north and in the Southwest.

    The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, understand that the route to power is to trim Buhari’s margins drastically in the north while taking two of the southern zones. Alternatively, they could clear the three zones in the south and win in the North-Central zone to capture power.

    The opposition have relative strength in the South-south zone, so the most natural fishing ground is the East. For one thing, the Southwest has a bird in hand: a sitting vice president. By offering the VP role to the Southeast Atiku made the right move to fire up what has always been a historical stronghold for parties like PDP which are either centrist or right of centre.

    In a zone where separatist sentiment has been quite fevered in recent times, Atiku’s restructuring rhetoric has equally played well with a section of the region’s political elite. But, what ordinarily should have been a match made in heaven, has turned into an awkward embrace because of the complex dynamics of the region’s politics.

    It is hard to understand why this is so, given that the Igbos have been locked out of the nation’s top two offices since 1983 when the late Dr. Alex Ekwueme was Vice President. In a country where the presidency is so powerful, thirty five years outside the corridors of power has only heightened the sense of alienation. So, you would expect that the region would grasp the opportunity with enthusiasm.

    The first sign of trouble was the lukewarm – even cold reception – by some Igbo leaders to the announcement that Atiku had chosen the former Anambra State Governor, Peter Obi, as running mate. While many observers felt this was a good pick, a meeting of the zone’s PDP governors and other leaders declared they were ‘unaware’ of the selection.

    On the surface it looked like petty nit-picking over procedural missteps. But the sulking was signal of something that ran deeper. Their action was the ultimate dampener which deflated whatever bounce Atiku had enjoyed coming out of the party’s Port Harcourt convention.

    It didn’t help that the candidate had disappeared to Dubai to recharge his batteries – leaving the firefighting to surrogates. Even after his return you still got the feeling that some in the PDP Igbo leadership remained less than enthused about having Obi on the ticket for different reasons.

    Some have said that the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, had been promised the running mate slot by Atiku as a carrot for rallying the zone’s support. That is yet to be denied by the candidate. In any case, as the most senior political office holder from the zone he would have felt he deserved to be considered for the position.

    Now that Atiku has explained the rationale for choosing Obi, it is clear that there would be no substitution of the ex-governor on the ticket. He must now run with him all the way hoping his presence would not be a drag on the platform.

    But even more worrying for the PDP and its candidate are lingering questions as to whether he intends to stay just one term in office if he wins in February 2019, or take full advantage of his constitutional right to serve two terms.

    It has been suggested that pre-convention, Atiku committed himself to serving for just four years – clearing the way for the Igbo to actualise their presidential ambitions as early as 2013. But once the PDP ticket was secured with the help of the block votes of the Southeast, the former VP suddenly shunted aside any talk of one-term.

    The ambitious among the zone’s political elite have been keen to get him to make a firm commitment to that idea. He has studiously refused to do so.

    This is a headache that has dogged a succession of presidents from Olusegun Obasanjo to Goodluck Jonathan. Walking back a careless commitment made in the heat of horse-trading always has grave consequences. Obasanjo got away with it lightly. But it was part of the fuel that fired anti-Jonathan sentiment in 2015 in parts of the north where it was felt he went back on a similar pledge made in 2011.

    All of this is recent history and if the Southeast cannot get that commitment from Atiku and he wins in 2019, they may very well be shut of power till 2027. By that time a whole swathe of politicians from the zone with presidential ambitions may have become either too old or irrelevant.

    What complicates matters for the PDP is the fact the one-term offer its candidate is unwilling to make, is an unspoken offering from the APC. Buhari’s second tenure – assuming he prevails in 2019 – would end in 2013, clearing the way for the presidency to rotate down south.

    Although, it is now clear that when that happens, all three southern zones would fight for the prize, the Igbos must certainly fancy their chances. Outside of the short military interregnum overseen by the late Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, the last person from the zone to be president was Nnamdi Azikiwe, and he was a ceremonial one at that.

    The bind for the zone is whether it makes more sense to back a horse that makes you wait eight more years, or the one guaranteed by law to exit in four years.

    The last bone that Atiku has thrown to the Southeast is restructuring. He has not said how far he’s willing to go with this. But I strongly suspect that coming from a zone where restructuring has been painted as dismemberment of the country by other means, what the PDP candidate may eventually offer, if ever he gets to power, may prove a devastating disappointment in IPOB country.

    Atiku has a tough task on his hands. His most plausible route to power is to win in the North-Central and do reasonably well in the other two northern zones and South-south, while winning the Southeast convincingly.

    However, for that to happen there must be momentum. The 2019 polls are shaping to be a tight affair. In such close elections, the margins are very important. Whoever does a better job of mobilising their base and bringing out the voters on Election Day would prevail.

    The bad news for Atiku is that if Buhari gets a plurality in the three northern zones and retains the Southwest, he wins. In the Northwest, his numbers are threatened in Sokoto and Kano with the recent defections and upheavals in the party.

    In Benue, the herdsmen killings and defection of Governor Samuel Ortom could have a negative impact. The same thing is likely in Kwara State where the battle line has been drawn with Senate President, Bukola Saraki. But elsewhere up north the ruling party’s support is holding up as recent bye-elections show.

    In 2015, the north versus south sentiment helped tip the contest in Buhari’s favour. In the current race that sectional edge is absent and that plays to the incumbent’s advantage. Head or tail a northerner would be president and that confers no special advantage to Atiku.

    Without emotional factors like ethnicity and religion driving things, we might be headed for low turnout – and this inevitable favours incumbents. It simply means the opposition hasn’t been able to excite its base.

    In the Southwest, Buhari and the APC are in better shape today than in 2015. Back then Ekiti and Ondo States were in the hands of the PDP. Today, they are back in ruling party control along with Osun. Even in the troubled Ogun APC, the embittered Governor Ibikunle Amosun has vowed to work for Buhari’s re-election.

    At the inauguration of the PDP’s Presidential Campaign Council, Atiku claimed to have momentum that would usher him into office. But I don’t see it in the Southeast where he desperately needs a superlative performance.

    In 2015, the Southeast embraced Jonathan with even more gusto than his native South-south zone – and the only link he had with the region was the middle name Azikiwe. Such was the enthusiasm that even the arch secessionist Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) forgot its raison d’etre to actively campaign for the re-election of a Nigerian president.

    That same passion that charged up the Jonathan campaign nearly four years ago, has so far been missing in the PDP’s efforts in East. Perhaps, things may change in coming weeks, but clearly this is one campaign badly in need of energy.

  • Our Girls; 100; Promoted judges; Editors: Policies or politics?

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

    More than 100 gallant officers and men of the Nigerian armed forces who were also our fathers, husbands, sons and brothers fell victim to Boko Haram’s unfathomably murderous ideology and evil ways. Add the Boko Haram’s kidnap of Gamdoru citizens numbering 50 with a very horrifying and emotionally terrorising uncertain fate as near-slaves, sex slaves and even become victims of staged televised execution. When will we take Boko Haram and other forces like Islamic State seriously war-like enough to adequately blanket the Northeast with adequate numbers of troops of the armed forces and compulsory garrisoning of every town and village and road in the area?

    Surely our government has already recruited the EU countries for satellite monitoring of the area to detect enemy troop movements with a view of counterattacking and even preventing attacks on our widespread civilian populations. Meanwhile, the herders/marauders raiding, ruining and murdering farmers nationwide and continues to cause havoc and create anxiety and looms large everywhere. It is difficult to say that the country is not in serious trouble. The question on everyone’s mind nationwide is – ‘what next, is anyone safe anywhere?’

    The very bad habit, now a ‘tradition’ of suspending the National Assembly, NASS, plenary whenever a member dies is a bad one, wasting the time and money of thousands who travel or otherwise have inconvenienced themselves to be present in NASS to meet a political person or otherwise interact. What is the cost of a suspending plenary? N10m, N100m? Another wasted day in Nigerian politics. The suspension of plenary over the death of the 44-100 soldiers in Metele, mentioned above is similarly in bad taste even if it is well meaning. A holiday is ridiculous at this time of national tragedy and major threat to Nigeria. What should have happened was a robust debate, a minute of genuine silence, continued work, a plan of action to support government in combating this murderous malevolent and well planned attack. NASS should suspend the ‘bad tradition of suspension of NASS on the death of any member’.

    There is a brand new Grand Egyptian Museum costing $1billion. Wow!!!  Meanwhile we in Nigeria have serial governments which cannot see the value in completing our National Library and our own museums decay and are still ancient refusing to become both ancient and modern.

    Elizabeth Ochanya, aged 13, raped to death, will not die in our hearts and minds but that is not enough. Justice must be swift and seen to be done. Too many open and shut cases stall with calculated delays and eventually slip through the cracks of justice creating the usual but unfortunately very well known injustice in our justice system. Indeed judges getting promotion should not be allowed to advance until they have disposed of all already started cases. Abandoning cases midway causing untold costs to both prosecution and accused and is a strain especially for victims and innocents and a stain on the reforms-in-progress judiciary. Similarly, now GE has withdrawn from the concession it applied for and won and fought for against the machinations of a noisy NASS for narrow gauge railway. What cost in time and money to the people of Nigeria using railways? More backwards and forwards with no progress.

    Our journalists and news review persons who review the newspapers every morning on radio and TV have regrettably fallen into the ‘Only Politics Matters’ Syndrome and largely ignore the other major non-political stories that really matter to the public. They have a duty to balance their commentaries and not give too much public space and time during press reviews to the trivial and sometimes disgraceful and well-choreographed political pettiness and tiffs which always dissolve into political nothing and reconciliation. So why waste time on them? Rather, after one political commentary, let them please put the people first and highlight real things that matter, also in the same papers.

    We see TV reviewers ignoring ‘real news’ items that matter to the majority in favour of ‘fake fights and make-up between politicians’ repetitively highlighted like the regular ‘Embrace Between Political Pythons’ or a ‘he-said-she-said’ all political trivia and gossip about political gladiators. The people and their matters must matter more to the newspaper editors and reviewers than political trivia designed to catch the eye and attention of gullible editors and reviewers. Politics makes us sick and dizzy with its backwards and forwarding. Who cares who politically stabs whom in the political back again and again? Politics is everything and nothing. In a society so abused by politicians, editors have the responsibility and the power not to create a political monster from over publicity.

    In the last couple of months before the election, editors of all newspapers have yet another opportunity, to naturally be abandoned, of direction wayward politicians towards the topics that really matter to all other Nigerians. Nigerian editors should seize the moment and produce front pages that matter to the citizen and the survival of the nation, and identify and use issues and real people news stories to push political personal stories sideways to force politicians to see and begin to debate the real news that will guide the politicians back to the old well-trodden but now discarded path of service to the people.

     

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

  • Why Jonathan lost the presidency

    Any Nigerian alive between 2010 and 2015 was a witness to history who doesn’t need Goodluck Jonathan’s new tome to understand how the former president oversaw the unravelling of the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) seeming vice grip on power.

    People used to sneer at the then ruling party’s boast that it would remain in power for 60 years. But such was its spread and strength across the country that it was not a scenario that was too outlandish to contemplate.

    Examples abound around the world showing it was possible for a political party to hold power for decades. Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) held uninterrupted power for 71 years from 1929 to 2000. Paraguay’s right wing Colorado Party ruled for 61 years non-stop until it was defeated at the polls in 2008. Equally notable in the longevity stakes is India’s Congress Party which governed without break for 49 long years.

    Coming into the pre-election year of 2014, the PDP had already chalked up 15 years in power and, despite the upheavals within its ranks, still looked the most likely to be returned at the polls the next year.

    At that point, the All Progressives Congress (APC) just looked like the gathering pool of the disaffected from the ruling party and veteran opposition politicians. It was an unlikely aggregation of strange bedfellows whose chances of seizing power from the PDP behemoth was akin to that of a mad scientists sending a rocket successfully to the sun.

    Speaking with a well-known leader of the then fledgling opposition party a few months before its stunning electoral triumph in March 2015, he confessed that although he wasn’t too religious, he was willing to class the transformation of the APC as nothing short of a miracle. A party that was barely two years old was on the verge of toppling one that had held the reins for almost 16 years.

    Only a potent mix of complacency, insensitivity, arrogance and blindness could have produced this situation. Each of these items was in abundance in the Jonathan presidency and ruling party circa 2014. Unfortunately, the former president has a different take on why he was ousted from Aso Rock.

    His new book ‘My Transition Hours’ talks about some of the then ruling party governors working against him in the North. Religion and his handling of the Boko Haram, the Chibok schoolgirls’ saga, were said to have been deployed to undo him. He equally claims there was a vendetta against his family.

    I don’t doubt that there’s a bit of truth in some of these claims, but the problem is with the presentation. He would rather apportion blame to others than take responsibility.

    Jonathan chose not to believe the image staring back at him in the mirror. He claims he used to laugh when critics called him ‘clueless’: but the tag stuck because there was so much coming out of his administration that suggested the label was a perfect fit.

    He is, once again, playing the victim. But rather than being the target of any imaginary vendetta, the former president must admit that a combination of his weakness and poor political skills in the latter days of his presidency, prepared the ground for his swift slide from power.

    Only a wrecking ball of a president and party leader could have blithely watched as five governors and sundry heavyweights exited the PDP to join forces with the nascent APC. I recall that after the departure of the G-5, Jonathan said dismissively that the ruling party would become more cohesive and peaceful with exit of the ‘troublemakers’. It didn’t play out that way.

    Indeed, the entry of the PDP governors into APC marked the turning point for the burgeoning opposition movement – triggering a momentum that would propel it to a stunning electoral victory several months down the line. Before the coming of the governors the new party, despite its promise, was still limited in its spread and vulnerable to accusations of being sectional as opposed to the broad-based ruling party. Had those who left remained in the PDP, I dare say the election outcome in 2015 could have mirrored what happened in 2011.

    So Jonathan, then PDP chairman Bamanga Tukur and party hardliners who lacked the political savvy to negotiate compromises with the aggrieved governors, actually opened the crack for Muhammadu Buhari and the opposition hordes to get their feet in the door.

    Yes, the opposition used Boko Haram and the Chibok girls kidnap to devastating effect in defining the former president as incompetent. But what did he expect? These were problems on the ground which the floundering government could not deal with. His critics were within their rights to play the issues for what they were worth in the contest for power.

    Jonathan could have denied them the ammunition but instead stockpiled them by a series of inexplicable and wrongheaded moves. Mid-way into his administration he had a chance to decapitate the growing Boko Haram serpent with firm military action, but kept mouthing the apologetic nonsense about not going to war with ‘our own countrymen.’ The question he didn’t address was when the insurgents IEDs blew innocent Nigerians to smithereens, were they playing video games?

    I still recall that at a point when the United States government at the instigation of then Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, sought to designate Boko Haram a terrorist organisation, the Federal Government sent a lobbying team to the State Department to counter the move. The rationale? Designating the sect a terror organisation cause innocent Nigerians to be subjected to travel delays at airports around the globe!

    I recall that a delegation of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) – fed up with Boko Haram’s slaughter of Christians in the North – was in Washington DC at that same time, to press the Americans for sterner action against the sect. Imagine their shock when they met a high-powered lobby team pushing an opposite objective.

    One of the things the US designation of Boko Haram as a terror group would have done was to engage closer international tracking of the sect’s finances and cut off the flow. Thanks to the efforts of the Jonathan administration, the Americans backed off and the Islamists grew by leaps and bounds.

    The ex-president must have naively thought he could sweet-talk suicide bombers into changing their way of thinking. They replied with bombings in the heart of Abuja, Kano and Kaduna. By then the insurgency had become an albatross that would pull him down.

    The reasons why Jonathan fell would fill an even bigger volume than that which he has written. But let’s address another of his interesting laments: that his family was a target for vendetta. Again, if some members of his family became lighting rods for public criticism it was because he let them become major performers in the political circus.

    Take the erstwhile First Lady for instance. In recent Nigerian history no president’s wife has been so deeply immersed in the murky waters of politics as Patience Jonathan. As a political wife she was as much an asset as a mobiliser, as she was a liability as a loose cannon who didn’t know when to stop.

    She was an unrelenting source of negative publicity for Jonathan and damaged public perceptions about him. His seeming inability to rein her in despite the havoc she was causing at different points, solidified the image of the ex-president as weak.

    Who can forget her infamous run-in with former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, during which she gave the governor a very public tongue-lashing? Who can forget her theatrical interventions in the heat of the Chibok girls kidnap saga – an incident that presented the First Couple as unfeeling and seeking to make political capital out of a tragic situation. In the end, her cries of ‘There’s God o!’ became fodder for a thousand comic skits. Vendetta against his family? What vendetta!

    There’s no doubt that Jonathan is yet to come terms with his 2015 electoral defeat. The wounds may still be fresh, but so also are our memories of why he went down. He was truly the architect of his fall from power. Instead of blaming others, he should ask himself how he managed to transform a massive electoral advantage in 2011 into a deficit in 2015.

    In 2011, Jonathan polled 22,495,187 votes to Buhari’s 12,214,853 votes. But in 2015, the tables were turned with the incumbent receiving 15,424,921 votes as against his rival’s 12,853,162. How did the former president manage to blow the support of 10 million voters in the space of four years? That is why he should be researching rather than trying to spin unsuccessfully events that happened before our very eyes.

  • Our Girls; Who killed education? Restructure

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

    Still in regard to the Babangida autobiography mentioned in last week’s article, there will be a few truths which may be interrogated to explain some of the strange ‘never-to-be-forgotten-or-forgiven’ Babangida ‘error’ – the Dele Giwa BOMB BLAST, the two party system, Option A4, the annulment resulting in tyranny under the Abacha/Al Mustapha regime and the continued downward spiral of the nation spawned by the placement of the military in perpetuity in politics. I am not aware he, Babangida, needs my book-money in retirement. Ex-presidents are like governors-in-retirement in ‘satisfaction’, though many Nigerians certainly would need money from him if he is willing to give some up.  Many years ago in an article, I invited him, Babangida, to write a cheque of $10,000 to each of the 70,000 schools in Nigeria for books to fill the starved libraries instead of opening his secondary school and later university on the ashes of the many failed government schools, deliberately underfunded. Of course, he cannot be blamed for the profligacy of the PDP or the single-minded strategic exploitation of the citizenry of Lagos State to fund self and ‘war-like’ political campaigns nationwide. Those are for someone else’s autobiography. A question – is there a Babangida Foundation?

    Channels TV deserves every credit for the recent football and just concluded athletics meet as does Lafarge for the literacy competition and many others. What Channels and few other corporate bodies and individuals have done is only to reintroduce what we had before the military era and what all other countries have today to develop their youth. It is terrifying to know that some Nigerians entrusted with making policies for the good of our children decided instead to sabotage their future by destroying all ‘practical aspects of education’ be they practical sport, practical science, practical physics, practical chemistry, practical biology, practical art and literature, practical music and most heinous of all, practical library which permanently damaged literacy and knowledge dissemination. Now, if you think that practical aspects of education are expensive, you are correct. The result of this disastrous ‘Nationwide Cancellation of Practicals’ was really many millions of naira ‘saved’ while millions of brains and bodies were ‘lost’ and deprived of their full potential. Unfortunately all this money saved was just diverted and stolen, as originally planned. The second part of the plan worked as well. Nigerian students nationwide began a programme of lifeless minimal education. And technology was not left out in the planned, systematic destruction. No polytechnic is worth the name due to equipment lapses and failures. Even sport was practical-less resulting in students being taught the ‘Theory of Everything’ with resultant ‘knowledge of nothing’. The children could tell you the theory of litmus paper but had never seen it change from red to blue. They knew the measurements of a long jump pitch but had never jumped. Now if you are never given paper to draw, paints to paint, instruments to play, experiments to perform, libraries to read and get lost in, what type of grown up will you be to yourself and your children- Generation Next? Multiply that by a generation of youth to see why Nigeria is still underperforming.

    For teachers and students numbering millions nationwide in targeted Nigerian schools, Track, Field, Music Room, Laboratory and Library ‘hour’ became obsolete. ‘A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words Except In Nigeria Where Practicals Are Frowned On.’ And for this crime against the children of Nigeria, not one myopic, ethnic, parochial, reactionary, archaic and certainly non-science background, functionally illiterate education-imposter permanent secretary, minister, or director has been identified, prosecuted and jailed for being responsible or indicted for this crime against the collective youth brain of Nigeria. And if it was such a laudable activity why is no one willing to come forward and take the ‘discredit’? This means the secret anti-education education ministry Mafia has succeeded in destroying the dreams of millions and crippled our youthful ‘search and grow’ science and technology potential. Now our artisans and technologists know little of the practical aspects of their jobs and are displaced in the industrial market by foreign African economic migrants. It also explains why, abandoned by a conniving government at federal level and a spineless state government, we have to rely on good people at Channels to provide ‘Practical Sport’ as a support in finding the next athletes.

    Education depends on the goal. It seems our government planned for and succeeded in producing poor quality material. What a Human Rights crime against children that went unchallenged by state governors. If you have an education, you should get or make a job, earn money, be a heard voice in the future. Sometimes, the forces that draw us back must be overcome with argument. For years mobile phones were the exclusive preserve of the government elite. From them it trickled down to the top echelon of the business community. But some of us had seen the power of the cell phone. I mentioned it in my Obafemi Awolowo Lecture during the terror of the Abacha regime. From mining, waterways, VAT, corporate tax to roads, Nigerian will benefit from decentralisation or restructuring as with cell phones which freed us from NITEL. Even hospitals need freeing from the fist of federal might.

     

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  • Buhari versus Atiku: The dirty war begins

    Today, what might go down as Nigeria’s dirtiest electoral campaigns ever, kick off. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has realised his long term dream of running as presidential flagbearer of a major political party. It is a 25-year-old quest that has brought him within touching distance of the prize. It is something he would fight for with his life.

    For President Muhammadu Buhari, it was third time lucky in 2015. It is his testimony that he met a mess. He would argue that the demolition job executed over 16 years by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) requires at least four more years to sort out. He and his backers would regard a return to power by the erstwhile ruling party – after just four years – as a calamity.

    Thus the stage is set for what promises to be a bruising war of attrition. Already, signs of what to expect are out there. We’ve heard that Buhari actually died several months ago and that an imposter – some mythical character called ‘Jubril’ from Sudan – is the one governing Nigeria!

    The status of the president’s education and certificates has been trending. The opposition swears he never went near the four walls of a school. Not even the attestation helpfully provided by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has doused the conspiracy theories. If anything, the action has fuelled the fire. So we might be dealing with forensic examination of certificates and even legal challenges over the issue come Election Day.

    Strategists for the two main contenders clearly think they have the right formula to undo the aspiration of their rivals. For the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Buhari, the goal would be to keep hammering away at the perception of Atiku as corrupt, while projecting Buhari as the paragon of virtue.

    Surprisingly, the PDP don’t want to leave the corruption card to the APC alone to exploit. So their strategy appears to be one of lobbing sundry graft allegations against key figures in the administration, and exhuming celebrated cases like those that led to the ouster of erstwhile Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal and others. In the end, they can say to the Nigerian public – ‘see, they are not better than us.’

    But their main fire would be reserved for the president himself. They would try to define him as inept and ineffective, old, sickly and, above all, out of touch with modern realities and lacking the intellectual wherewithal to steer the economy out of its dire straits.

    While these things could provide a rich lode of attack materials, they ultimately would not define this electoral contest for a number of reasons. For one thing, the bitterness that trailed the loss of the PDP incumbent three years ago has not been totally purged. Forget the few office holders switching camps, those who hated Buhari in 2015 still despise him today, while those who reviled PDP and Goodluck Jonathan back then are not more enamoured of them today.

    It is those feelings you see being expressed by those who insist that in 2019, it would be anybody but Buhari. So saying the president is old and has health challenges is simply stating the obvious: it makes no difference to his admirers who love him warts and all.

    Of course, there are those who expected more and are disappointed with Buhari’s performance. He may not count on their support come February. But that doesn’t translate into them joining up with his rival, as they would have to decide if the PDP candidate is an upgrade on the man they once considered a messiah.

    It is the same story with Atiku. Calling him names is not going to change much for those who have had it with the incumbent. Indeed, I saw a funny meme on social media posted by some of the ex-VP’s fans which suggested that even if he and his running mate were nabbed robbing the Central Bank, they would still vote for him.

    So for hard-core partisans, the matter in settled. But this election would not be determined by them alone. This would be a very close contest – even tighter than 2015. Like most incumbents, Buhari would shed support because his actions and inactions would have offended a few. If the opposition are sufficiently energised, it could make for very interesting outcomes. Still, it would come down to the mass of undecided voters out there who are waiting for answers to the hard questions.

    This election would be a referendum on Buhari’s stewardship. It would not just be about the character of the man who wants his job. It would be an assessment of what he has delivered on the issues of the economy, corruption and insecurity which defined the APC platform in 2015.

    Back then, all he had to offer was charisma and the promise of a better tomorrow. Today, he has record to be assessed on the economy, insecurity and corruption, over which voters would make the determination whether enough progress has been made for him to carry on.

    For Atiku and PDP, a campaign that rests only on name-calling and wild allegations would not be enough. They need to present a compelling case for an electorate that judged them so harshly just three years ago to trust them again.

    So, perhaps after all the fun and games with abuse and accusations on both sides, we may just yet see a campaign where the candidates make the argument as to why they should be entrusted with power – instead of painting over and again the same old caricatures we are so familiar with.

  • ‘Operation Reinforce Insanity’

    Afew ago, the Lagos State Police Commissioner, Edgal Imohimi, and heads of several security agencies in the state, launched with much media fanfare a so-called ‘Operation Restore Sanity.’

    This was ostensibly an effort to bring a measure of control to the city’s notoriously unruly roads. As often happens at such events, there was the usual tough talk, spiced with a few threats about what would befall those caught violating the state’s traffic rules. For instance, those caught driving against traffic stood the risk of having their vehicles impounded.

    As a longsuffering resident of Lagos, I welcomed any effort that would curtail the madness on the roads. Today, driving against traffic by commercial motorcycles, tricycles and all manner of vehicles is standard practice in a city with pretensions to being a modern megalopolis.

    A few days ago, somewhere in the city, I witnessed two policemen – one male and another female – actually facilitating a long line of cars driving against traffic. For their shameful action they were tipped openly by the offending drivers and they brazenly pocketed their filthy lucre. It was a clear case of reinforcement of traffic insanity.

    On the first work day of the so-called ‘operation’ to restore sanity, I watched a few policemen at Oshodi going about their task with body language that suggested they would rather be doing something else. Little wonder that after Imohimi’s grand press conference, it’s been business as usual with a vengeance.

    What is happening on Lagos roads should worry all of us. Unless firm action is taken quickly one incident of road rage could result in fatalities that would shock the nation.

    But the traffic conundrum is not just about what security agencies do or don’t do. Three factors are fuelling the chaos. First is the massive construction going on in different parts of the city. While in the long term we might see some benefits from these developments, in the short term we have not seen the same scale of efforts devoted to managing the traffic disruptions caused by the ongoing work.

    Related to the construction is the fact that there is virtually no road artery in the city that is not pockmarked with potholes or mini craters. In the past, these would be filled up during the rainy season and patched up at the first sign of dryness, to ease traffic flow. But for some reason the failed roads have been left in this awful condition as though they were bombed by some enemy air force.

    To these first two reasons, we can then add lawlessness and impatience of the typical Lagos road user. This can only be managed by proper and continuous education of the citizenry on traffic laws and road etiquette. This is then backed up by strict enforcement of the law.

    In recent times, it is only former Governor Babatunde Fashola that exhibited the willingness to take the fight to the outlaws who have made Lagos roads some of the most dangerous on the continent.

    Unfortunately, it appears as if the government has surrendered where law enforcement is concerned. It is possible to sanitise the roads where there is the will. I fear, though, that with the campaign season upon us we might not see the type of tough action that is required. After all, which office-seeking politician wants to offend a PVC-wielding okada rider who wants to be allowed to do as he pleases?

    That leaves us with the scary prospect that as outgoing Governor Akinwumi Ambode speeds up the process of completion of his legacy projects, and law enforcement turns the blind eye to traffic offenders, a perfect storm of chaos is about to be unleashed. God help us all!

  • Our Girls; Can NLC, ASUU stop NASS salaries and perks?

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

    Obasanjo says Nigerians are frustrated. Not an original observation, sorry though he is not correct. Nigerians are very, very frustrated and have been very, very frustrated almost all their lives and the lives of their parents as well from a lack of love of Nigeria by its leaders. Currently, we are at the deliberate but still inexplicable nine-month serial delays in budget approval, a wicked, evil and successful attempt to ruin the economy. Add the perpetuation in politics by, and the easy manipulation of the media of, the old and largely failed past presidential guard in the country’s highest offices. The imposition of candidates, the continued financial consequences of the massive theft and misuse since 1999 of our public funds precipitating the pauperisation of the citizen but not the politician who still illegally, legally steals irresponsibly and mentally inexplicably huge funds masquerading as salaries and perks with no remorse far in excess of the sums stolen by all the criminals convicted of fraud and theft or even enjoyed by politicians in the best economies in the world. Nigerians are indeed very frustrated that politicians from all major parties rub citizens’ noses in their poverty while politicians get richer. Unfortunate.

    It is a pity that our president is ‘proud to declare a State of Emergency in Water -Sanitation and Drinking’. Similarly a new vehicle launch boasts it has a car that can ‘Cope with Nigerian Roads’ like Peugeot of those days ‘Made for Nigerian Roads’. When will we have roads like everywhere else? Only if the political class make that decision between self and citizen.

    The NLC and all bodies going on strike separately should put as Number One on their agenda what many citizens consider to be Enemy Number 1- the National Assembly (NASS) and force it to cut its hyper-greedy salaries and perks, SAPing Nigeria dry. NLC etc should also target the colossal constituency projects and lead a campaign for cancellation of in favour of relocating the funds into the ministry budgets. NLC should also campaign to put politicians on the state and federal salary structure at levels up to level 20 or even level 24 for president. These could have been part of the fight for increased minimum wage. Perhaps ASUU, striking for improved services and fulfillment of long past agreements should remain on strike and be joined by other bodies like the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, until NASS recants its exorbitant and extortionist emoluments greater than in any other political class worldwide.

    The reason why the education budget is so much lower than the UN recommended 26% is that the politicians trivialise the need to equip education to a level at par with anywhere in the world. Nigeria has always had the money for education. Just see how many trillions have been unaccounted for, and therefore stolen, during the military misadventure and since 1999. Witness the abandoned projects and disappearing funds for pensions and salaries. The money for education and even good quality health and good roads was and is there but it was and perhaps is, to a much lesser degree, diverted to corruption-driven projects and the greed of politicians, contractors and civil servants. They are like a plague of locusts on citizen. Their steps to amend the constitution are belated and an afterthought to placate a population disgusted with its non- passage of the budget for nine or 10 months. When did our thieves stop stealing a few millions and move to a billion and more? Was it not under the military that their ‘chop-chop’ appetite was whetted? If the huge sums were never stolen, there would have been funds for all important projects to railways to meet Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs. Of course it takes a leadership that is anti-corruption in morals, policies and cash and bullion matters. At present we have a leadership which appears to be failing in parts of this definition and the violence and ethnically-based appointments are there for all to see. Would he jail those who are suspected of corruption but who gave him support to win his first term? Will he turn on the apparent corrupt friends-in-high-places making them strange bedfellows, if he wins a second term? The story is told that he surrounded himself through his top main appointments with the Daura Mafia because he is hell-bent on preventing being ousted by another military coup a la Babangida, who is still very much around and by the way is planning an autobiography!!!

    Personally I cannot give a kobo of my money to Babangida for his autobiography as his reign left a very bad taste in my mouth, a huge dent in the dollar value of my naira, created the first wave of professional refugees heading abroad, and an increase in the Monetary Policy Rate under the vulture International Morticians Fund and the Woe Bank. However I hope as a tribute to Nigeria, and as a penance for sins past, he will give away one million copies of the book. And readers please do not dustbin the book or burn the book before reading it. No knowledge, no matter how annoying, is wasted. I do not expect revelations of pre-coup plot meetings or assets declaration in the book.

     

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