The Nation Newspaper

Tag: hour

  • President Jonathan’s finest hour

    At exactly 1:15 pm United Sates eastern time (6:15 pm Nigerian time) on Tuesday, my daughter called me from Lagos with the news that President Goodluck Jonathan had just called Gen. Buhari and congratulated him on his victory in the presidential election. I have seen Nigerian elections since 1952, have taken frontline parts in many, been a candidate in some, and won some. I can’t remember another election campaign that was so contentious, and so bitter and violent in tone, as the one that ended this past Tuesday. And I can’t remember any other federal ruler of Nigeria who so willingly conceded victory to an opponent as President Jonathan has done.

    In the history of Nigeria, the one or two minutes of greetings between President Jonathan and Gen. Buhari this past Tuesday is very likely to go down as President Jonathan’s finest hour as a Nigerian public official. And those one or two minutes may very well go down as the turning point in the hitherto tumultuous path of Nigeria as an independent country since 1960. If Nigeria goes on from this point to evolve into a country with a disciplined leadership, orderly management, openly democratic politics, and a dynamic modern economy, President Goodluck Jonathan could become the initiator of needed change for Nigeria. Some day in the future, our grateful descendants may erect statues to his memory.

    Sure, most of us Nigerians have spent the past four years lamenting President Jonathan’s inadequacies. Because he comes from the Niger Delta, where many brave youths have arisen since 1960 to war against excessive centralization of power and resource control, and against an insensitive federal establishment, very many Nigerians naturally looked up to him to start a process of constitutional changes – changes that would give the Nigerian federation a more rational structure, and restore to our federating units much of the responsibility for development and resource management that the Federal Government has been messing around with. But, not only did he not start the needed change, he even seemed for some time to be opposed to it. And when he was finally prevailed upon to take some step and call a National Conference, he did absolutely nothing to give it any direction.

    Quite rightly, therefore, when some eminent citizens in Nigeria’s most progressive region rose up during, the now concluded election campaign and urged their people to support him on the grounds that he would carry out the recommendations of the National Conference; their people were skeptical.

    During the same years under President Jonathan, our country has increasingly suffered distress on account of terrorism. At least, in the course of the first years of this century, we Nigerians grew used to believing confidently, and with considerable pride, that ours was the strongest military in Africa. In various trouble spots on the African continent, and even in places beyond Africa, we earned the reputation of being a key factor in international peacekeeping ventures. When Boko Haram began to raise a challenge against our country, therefore, most Nigerians felt sure that our military were more than capable of quickly getting rid of them. But the challenge mounted and mounted, while President Jonathan seemed more and more at a loss on what to do. The crisis attracted the attention of the whole world when Boko Haram kidnapped 276 students in a girls’ boarding school and we seemed to have no meaningful response. Various foreign governments and international agencies came in to offer help, and soon, through them, we got the shocking message that our military were hopelessly inept – as a result of rampant corruption.

    This national shame reached a peak when the armies of our supposedly weaker neighbours (Chad, Cameroon and Niger) intervened and began to achieve significant success against Boko Haram – success that seemed beyond the capability of our own military.  From this situation concerning our military, the image of our presidency as commanding chief over corruption assumed huge proportions. In fairness to President Jonathan, it is not right to charge him with being the originator of corruption in our federal government. Corruption was already a mighty power in our public life, and our Federal Government was already a monstrously corrupt entity, and the purveyor of corruption in our land, when President Jonathan was only a boy at school. The very constitutional structure given our country in 1978- 9 was designed to facilitate corruption – and it has done so more and more blatantly since then.

    But the recent stories of our military’s ineptitude due to corruption did a lot of harm to President Jonathan’s image at home and abroad – even though, on the basis of what we know about our former presidents (military and civilian), President Jonathan does not, obviously, have the audacity to do what some of our earlier presidents did in the realm of corruption.

    All these tend now to pale into only little significance side by side with what President Jonathan did last Tuesday evening. From all that we Nigerians know, when President Jonathan put that call through to Gen. Buhari, exchanged a few words with him and put down the telephone, he almost certainly saved our country from a major conflagration. For many months, many of our politically influential citizens have been exchanging threats of violence and war if the outcome they desired from the presidential election did not materialize. For years, some influential citizens have been, reportedly, importing and accumulating dangerous weapons for implementing their threats. Among us ordinary Nigerians, fearsome speculations have reigned. Then with one small gesture, President Jonathan commanded the rising tide of lawlessness and anarchy to be still. Soon, we will have another man in the position of president, and it is upon him we will then have to pin our hopes for our country. If he indeed is able to start off peacefully and smoothly, we will find it impossible to forget that it was President Jonathan who did that which made such a start-off possible.

    From our present situation, I have a message for our politicians. Because of my principal job as a scholar and teacher, with a significant amount of participation in the politics of my country, and with considerable contacts with politics, governance and development in many countries of the wide world, I am often horrified by the manner in which we Black African peoples conduct the politics of our countries.  I mean our tendency to infuse excessively violent passions into our relationships with one another, especially in the course of election rivalries. Some of the threats of war and violence, which we have heard in Nigeria in recent months, are simply unthinkable in most countries outside Black Africa. Besides, among persons intensely working for this or that presidential candidate, I have watched people say, write, or enshrine, unbelievably vicious and hurtful things about other persons – even persons to whom they are quite close by blood and other kinds of bonds.

    Where does this primitive urge to hurt and destroy our fellow men come from? How really does such savagery help our candidate? And, now that the candidates have ended this more or less amicably, how do we live with the hurt and barbarism that we so thoughtlessly generated in past weeks? Is it true that, as some say, we blacks are less human, and less capable of thought, than other races? We need to think about these things.

  • Jega’s finest hour as Nigerian victory

    Nigerians have little faith in their institutions. Except perhaps for the church, today headed by prosperity prophets, who have taken over the socio- economic role the state should perform in society; all other institutions are facing crisis of credibility. The bureaucracy is so powerful that it controls the water we drink, the air we breathe, the education of our children; where to live and where to be buried.

    Recently, a theft of N5billion pension fund was perpetrated inside the office of the Head of service just as another director in charge of the police, the most important organ of state, stole over N32b. The legislature has become a parasite living on the sweat and blood of those they are elected to protect through humane enacted laws. The judiciary is for the highest bidder. Those who allegedly stole N1.6 trillion are not in chains but in government because the outgoing President Jonathan government says ‘the wheel of justice grinds slowly in Nigeria’. Until now the picture of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), that Nigerians had was that of an umpire that often takes side with one of the competing teams if the price was right.

    But with commitment and strength of character, Jega changed that picture leading to the miracle of 28th March 2015. On that day, Nigerians came out in their millions, waited for hours in the sun, others in the rain, determined to cast their vote because unlike the inglorious moment in the First Republic when Chief Remi Fani Kayode said his party would win whether the people voted for it or not, Nigerians trusted Jega and believed their vote would count. He has not let those who put their trust in him down.  For Nigerian, it is the dawn on a new day. For the first time in the history of our nation, an incumbent president was defeated ‘round and square,’ through a process that was so transparent that the President could not have been anything but magnanimous in defeat to promptly congratulate the victor.

    The battle against forces of darkness that swore to rule for sixty years or pull the nation down on their head had been fierce.  Jega’s most potent weapons were the millions of Nigerians he was able to convince that sacrificing quality time to secure their PCVs, wait patiently for hours on a queue on the election day refusing to be disfranchised by enemies of our nation, spend their resources to rent generators, canopies, chairs or buy refreshments for their compatriots were worthy endeavours for sustenance of the soul of our nation. Thousands of our young corpers who spent Friday and Saturday nights sleeping in mosquito infested open field and unable to take their bath for two days made the sacrifice because of their faith that Jega’s efforts would bring a better tomorrow.

    It is gratifying to know that the current INEC is Nigerian made. It is made up of patriotic individual Nigerians. I was filled with admiration as I watched Kayode Idowu, the chief spokesman for the INEC chairman, who appeared not to have slept for days, educating Nigerians on the need for patience and understanding on Channels Television last Sunday. There were many voting locations with neither INEC officials nor INEC voting materials. But Nigerians remained resolute having realized that INEC was engaged in a battle of wits with those who worked assiduously to ensure its failure. At the end, their resilience and patience paid off. Those who had thought Nigerians especially the middle class would give up after a few hours were disappointed. Many in their sixties and seventies patiently waited on Saturday and those who had roles to perform in their churches on the palm Sunday returned briefly to vote when voting started before returning back to their churches.

    The African Union Election Observation Mission (AUEOM) said in preliminary findings that the vote was “conducted in a peaceful atmosphere within the framework that satisfactorily meets the continental and regional principles of democratic elections”. This is a credit to Jega and Nigerians who have faith in him. Except in the south south where militants, both young and old, often resort to self-help and Lagos where enemies of Nigeria were bent on truncating the transition, the election went smoothly everywhere. INEC’s success came after a hard fought battle with formidable foes beginning with the president, his errand boys and errant elders, his attack dogs, PDP Boko Haram insurgents and the Niger Delta militants whose leader Godsday Orubaba, a former minister of Niger Delta put up a show of shame on Tuesday in the full glare of national and international audience in a futile attempt to derail the transition.

    Of course Jega survived all his foes including President Jonathan, his greatest detractor who without proof claimed non indigenes in Lagos were being discriminated against by INEC in the distribution of PCVs; PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Muazu told a delegation of Africa Union election observers led by AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Dr. Aisha Abdullahi that his party objected to the use of card readers because  “the machine may not make for credible elections as it is said to easily malfunction especially when the battery is weak”; a former Governor of Anambra State, Chukwuemeka Ezeife, who spoke on behalf of Southern Leaders Forum insisted  there would be no election except Jega quits  and in fact, calls for his sack and arrest. There was also the National co-coordinator of the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) Otunba Gani Adams, who wanted Atthiru Jega removed ‘on the basis of PVC distribution and introduction of card reader’

    There were also 15 political parties that opposed the use of the card readers because “if the card reader should develop some technical problems, there is a possibility that the consequences of such development would affect about forty) or fifty percent of the polling booths nationwide. The national chairman of MEGA Progressive Peoples Party, Dare Falade; the presidential candidate of the Peoples Party of Nigeria, Kelvin Alagoa; and the presidential candidate of the Alliance represented them. Rafiu Salau amongst others represented them.

    The churches were not left out. There was Bishop Abraham Chris Udeh, the General Overseer of Mount Zion Global Faith Liberation Ministries, Nnewi, Amambra state, who had a vision that Jega must be removed. Buffeted and bedeviled by the typical Nigerian problems, INEC has emerged a new Nigerian successful brand and one institution that have made Nigerians proud. Jega’s joy for ending our long nightmare, I am sure will have no bounds. It is his victory as much as it is Nigerian victory.

  • The hour is here

    Friends, Nigerians and countrymen, spare me your time. At last, the moment has come for us to determine  whether or not things should continue as they are. Which direction our nation should go lies in our hands as we go to the polls on Saturday. The electorate, as in any election, have a crucial role to play in Saturday’s presidential poll. In our hands is the fate of the contestants and our dear country. If we vote right, we will be paving the way for a better and brighter future. But if we vote for the wrong candidate, our action will haunt us forever.

    Besides, generations unborn will not forgive us for mortgaging their future. How we vote and who we vote for will go a long way in shaping and building the Nigeria of our dream. At this critical stage of the nation’s life, we need a leader that can take us to the promised land – a land flowing with oil that will be beneficial to all and not only a few because they are in power. We are a blessed nation; we are blessed in resources – there is hardly any part of the country where natural mineral cannot be found and in abundance too.

    All we need do is to tap these resources and make life worth living for the people. With the right leader, this can be done. That right leader is the one we should go for on Saturday. There are many contestants in the race, but President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his arch-opponent, Gen Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) stand shoulder above the others whose names voters cannot even readily recall. On Saturday, there will be no fewer than 14 names on the ballot, but the votes will be going to only Jonathan and Buhari.

    What we are  experiencing in the countdown to the election has never happened before in the history of elections in the country. It is as if we have never had an election in Nigeria until now. The tension is so high that you can cut it with a knife. What about the hate campaign? Oh! that is another kettle of fish. This is why the world is worried about the election. Global leaders are afraid that there may be trouble because of the way our politicians are going about their campaigns. The ruling PDP,  its candidates and their supporters are the most guilty of this. Taking a cue from the party, its supporters have gone wild across the country, unleashing terror on the people.

    Under the guise of rallies, they shut down towns and cities, hindering movement.  In some instances, they vandalised vehicles, destroyed the campaign posters of opposing candidates, with the police looking the other way.  In some states, the president was stoned, perhaps by those who feel that they have had a raw deal under him. No matter how bad such people may feel, that was a wrong approach. They do not need pebbles to make their grievances known. Their voter’s card is their stone and they should use it wisely on Saturday. They can throw all the stones they want with their vote that day. This symbolic stone throwing will have more meaning than pelting the president’s convoy with pebbles on the road.

    Pelting the president’s convoy with stones will not yield anything, but with our votes we can throw  him out of office and bring him the person that will make our country the pride of Africa. We are called giant of Africa, but deep down us we know that to be a misnomer. How can we be giant of Africa when we cannot cater for the citizenry? How can we be giant of Africa when millions of graduates are roaming the streets for job? How can we be Africa’s giant when we cannot generate enough electricity for industrial and domestic use? How can we be Africa’s giant when the value of our naira keeps depreciating? The naira, at the official market, currently exchanges for N199 to the dollar; at the black market, it is around N230 to the dollar. Giant of Africa indeed! How can we be giant of Africa when the real sector is virtually dead? Because of the epileptic power supply, many firms are either not operating under full capacity or have relocated to countries where the environment is more conducive.

    Nigeria has never had it so bad. Jonathan has a lot of baggage going into this election, but his supporters do not think so. To them, Jonathan has done well and so, he should be given a second term. I do not know their yardstick for measuring Jonathan’s performance, but if it is the same as that of other Nigerians, surely the president cannot be said to have done well at all. Those against his return believe that he has done nothing to better the people’s lot. The only thing he has done, some believe,  is the rebasing of the gross domestic product (GDP) to accommodate sectors hitherto not captured. This is what his loyalists are touting as his achievement. What is an achievement in the rebasing of the GDP? It is nothing to crow about because it does not translate to more jobs or better life for the people.

    That the rebasing made Nigeria’s economy the largest in Africa does not in anyway deviate from the fact that it is all an economic jargon to bamboozle the people that Jonathan is working. If indeed Jonathan is working, it would have shown in the number of the unemployed  taken off the streets. If indeed he is working, it would have shown in regular power supply. If indeed the president is working, it would have shown in the resuscitation of the real sector. The last six years of Jonathan have been nothing but suffering for Nigerians. So, this election is about who can deliver the goods between Jonathan and Buhari.  This is why the election must be peaceful for us to make the right choice.

    If we get the right leader, it will be to our own good, but if we  make the wrong choice, it will be to our eternal regret. Buhari has done it before – as a military leader he restored order and sanity in the land. He was a no-nonsense leader, who acted the way the times then demanded. In the mess we now find ourselves, we need such a person to nudge us on to the path of greatness. Nigeria has a lot of potential. We are a nation of can-do people, but we lack the national leadership that will make us blossom. If honest Nigerians cannot make it under six years of Jonathan,  while marketers are robbing us through fuel subsidy,  what hope is there that if  he gets a second term things would be better? Things can only get worse under him. What we need is a  leader to propel us to greatness, not one that will promote divisiveness as Jonathan has been doing.

    As former President Olusegun Obasanjo said at a lecture to mark his 78th birthday in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, last March 5, ‘’there is nothing they have told us that is impossible but all they have said boils down to one thing and one thing only – leadership. And until we get it right, anytime we do not get it right, we cannot get any other thing right; don’t let us deceive ourselves, whether it is security, science and technology or innovation or the development of the economy or education they all boil down to leadership and at all levels. May God give us the leadership that occasions like this deserve in Nigeria…’’ Come Saturday, we will have an opportunity to pick such a leader. So, let us vote right; let us vote wise because no amount of stoning will later correct a wrong choice.

  • Chi happy hour refreshes with three new variants

    In order to satisfy consumers’ demand beyond the existing offerings, Chi Limited has introduced three new variants of Chi Happy Hour into the market. The variants are Apple Peach Pear, Guava and Kiwi Mint Lime. According to the company, they are just like the existing ones (Tropical, Peach, etc), and are specially blended to guarantee excitement and offer choices to its consumers.

    Unveiling them at the company’s head office in Lagos, the firm assured consumers that each pack of Chi Happy Hour is full of tasty fruitiness guaranteed to keep the consumer refreshed and satisfied. The new variants are sure to offer consumers more choice for refreshment from an engaging brand. Several studies conducted have revealed consumer’s preference for a healthy and refreshing alternative to carbonated soft drinks and the introduction of these variants is clearly based on understanding of the current reality.

    The company’s Managing Director, Mr. Roy Deepanjan said: “We recognise that consumers in the juice category prefer to explore exciting taste and different fruit mix options. We, therefore, arrived at these variants after several consumer studies, and we are quite confident that the taste will be liked by one and all.”

    As one of the fastest growing brands in the fruit Juice category, Chi Happy Hour is available in 1Lit, 500ml & 250ml packs and has become a regular feature at social events. By rolling them out, it is certain that Chi Happy Hour’s control over shelf space will increase and with it, share of the market and the consumer’s mind space.

  • Ebola: ‘We were quarantined for an hour in Montenegro’

    As the Nigerian government battles the Ebola virus, two lecturers from Adeyemi College of Education in Ondo State, Dr. Kehinde Adenegan and Mr. Bankole Aderemi, at the weekend narrated their experience in the hands of officials in Montenegro.

    The duo, who took a flight from the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, on Friday about 11:25pm and arrived Podgorica in Montenegro the following day about 1:25pm, said they were quarantined for an hour by Montenegro airport officials before they were released.

    The lecturers were among the 172 registered participants selected from 23 countries by the Chairman of the Mathematics Education into 21st Century Project, Dr. Alan Rogerson, holding in Herceg Novi, Montenegro.

    Adenegan is expected to deliver a paper on “Early Child Numeracy”, an aspect of Mathematics Education. The programme will last for one week.

    Adenegan, who sent an e-mail to our reporter in Akure, the Ondo State capital, from Montenegro, said they were disappointed that despite showing the officials their Ebola medical report tests conducted at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, the officials still quarantined them.

    He noted that the officials showed them the names of the six countries, including Nigeria, pasted at the passport control posts.

    Adenegan said: “We showed them our reports on arrival at Podgorica. Our passports and documents were collected for verification. The unfortunate thing is that six countries’ names have been pasted at the passport control posts, including Nigeria’s. Despite our defence, the doctors showed us a list that six people have died of Ebola in Nigeria, hence our country is not Ebola free.

    “We were placed under quarantine and became popular at the airport, as security officials were attached to us.”

  • Chi Happy Hour unveils three variants

    CHI Limited has introduced three new variants of Chi Happy Hour into the market. They are Apple Peach Pear, Guava and Kiwi Mint Lime.

    According to the company, they are blended fruit drinks aimed at  exciting its consumers.

    Unveiling the products at their head office in Lagos, Chi Limited assured consumers that each pack of Chi Happy Hour has tasty fruitiness.

    The firm said studies had shown that consumer’s preference for a healthy and refreshing alternative to carbonated soft drinks and the introduction of these new variants is based on this understanding.

    The Managing Director of Chi Limited, Mr. Roy Deepanjan, said: “We recognise that consumers in the juice category prefer to explore exciting taste and different fruit mix options. We, therefore, arrived at these variants after several consumer studies, and we are quite confident that the taste will be liked by one and all.”

    Chi Happy Hour is available in 1Lit, 500ml & 250ml packs. By rolling out the products.

     

  • Eaglets land in Kinshasa after 10-hour flight

    After clocking almost 10 hours on a flight, Nigeria’s Under 17 team, Golden Eaglets landed safely in Kinshasa, capital of Congo Democratic Republic, on Thursday, brimming with confidence ahead of their 2015 Second Round -First leg match slated to hold on Saturday in Kinshasa.

    The team  which departed it’s Calabar base for Lagos on Wednesday, flew out of the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA) the same night aboard Kenya Airways and made a stop-over in  Cotonou, before embarking on a five-hour nonstop journey arriving at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at 8:30 am local time (6:30am Nigerian time). They immediately boarded another two-and-a-half hour Kenya Airways flight for DR Congo and finally touched down at the N’djili Aeroport International in Kinshasa at exactly 10:10am local time-exactly the same time in Nigeria.

    After completing immigration formalities, the Golden Eaglets alongside Messer Rafiu Yusuf (NFF’s Head of technical department) Emmanuel Adesanya (NFF’s Head of Inter-clubs department) and Kut Kut Fon of the NFF’s accounts department) were received by Mr. Masiala Gaspard of the Protocol department of Federation Congolaise de Football Association (FECOFA).

    The contingent was later driven to Kampo Hotel on Avenue de la Commune and is already settling down even as officials from the Nigerian Embassy in Congo have promised to assist them for a successful outing.

    “We were here earlier with the Ambassador (His Excellency, Dr. Grant Ehiobuche) earlier  in order to welcome you but, unfortunately, you were not around then,” informed Mr. Ibrahim Miringa, Head of Chancery at the Embassy during lunch.

    “But there is nothing to worry about as we will do everything possible so that your outing would be successful here.”

    In a related development,  two stars of the 2013  Golden Eaglets’ World Cup team, goalkeeper  Dele Alampasu and midfielder  Chidiebere Nwakali, were on hand at the MMA  on Wednesday night  to wish the team  a successful outing.