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Tag: President Buhari

  • Buhari holds talks with French leader, Macron Tuesday

    President Muhammadu Buhari, who returned to Abuja Monday night from AU Summit in Mauritania, is billed to hold bilateral talks with President Emmanuel Macron of France at presidential villa, Abuja, Tuesday at 4.00p.m.

    Macron would discuss issues bordering on security and terrorism with President Buhari.

    Macron had on Monday in Nouakchott during the closing ceremony of the AU Summit met with the Buhari.

    Read Also: Afrika Shrine: Macron to perform with Omotola, Rita Dominic, Ramsey Nouah, others

    The French leader will after his engagement with Buhari visit the Afrika Shrine, a nightclub in Lagos founded by Nigerian music legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

    Social commentators believed that Macron would become the first “real president” to enter the club synonymous with marijuana smoke, sexy backup dancers and protest music.

    He is not a stranger to Nigeria. He trained as a senior civil servant at the French Embassy in Lagos in 2004, seven years after Fela died.

    Buhari on Monday night returned to Abuja after attending the 31st Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Assembly of Heads of State and Government, in Nouakchott.

    The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Muhammed Bello, Chief of Staff to the President, Malam Abba Kyari and some government functionaries welcomed the President at the presidential wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

    NAN

  • If I were President Buhari

    It is our collective responsibility as Nigerians to wish President Buhari all the best during his navigation of the ship of leadership amidst this incontestable stormy weather. His success is our corporate pride. As a matter of fact, successfully carrying the burden of over 250 ethnicities or micro-nations with a wide range of expectations and sensitivities is a Herculean task or an assignment of enormous proportions. But this notwithstanding, the President has no excuses if he wants to make positive history for himself, his family, Nigeria and the wider world.  Leadership is a combination of pains and gains. After everything, your name is what remains! It is against this backdrop that I write this paper.

    Permit me to briefly comment on the recently granted posthumous national honours to chiefs M.K.O Abiola and Gani Fawehinmi. Both gentlemen of blessed memory deserved much more given the huge sacrifices they made towards the emergence of democracy in this country. Indeed, this administration can legitimately establish ‘M.K.O Abiola Museum of National Unity’ in Abuja as a form of memorialisation of the June 12 saga. It is reasonably clear that despite the alleged political underpinnings and several contested narratives  of the awards by some Nigerians, President Buhari has to a limited degree, addressed the all-important issue of morality.  That’s all well and good, but there are more burning issues to be addressed by the president. I plead with the president to digest every criticism by Nigerians carefully and of course, passionately too.  Such a move, will pave the way for new directions of progress in several senses. Regular evaluation of some of his policies with respect to their workability or otherwise, is a desideratum for good governance. Humility as opposed to egotism is central to openness and by the same token, the full flowering of the human intellect. This has a pivotal role to play in the successful management of human resources within the confines of cultural diversities.

    Many leaders all over the world fail to make history basically because of the quality of their advisers, ministers, and general associates who are sycophantic or lily-livered.  In my own opinion, granting more national awards to the self-proclaimed June 12 revolutionaries some of who secretly parleyed with late General Abacha, amounts to a waste of the taxpayers’ monies or resources. It is a mundane matter- one of great triviality. Most Nigerians are fond of looking for titles at all costs to add to their names. Many of these are vanity prefixes and/ or suffixes. Dear President, you have more serious, people-centred things to do for this country as the clock ticks faster than ever before. Such graver problems and challenges are insecurity and absolute poverty.

    The Boko Haram insurgents have been heavily tamed and the remaining space for them in the northeast is fast shrinking.  This is a plus for the Buhari-led administration. Abuja and its suburbs as well as other parts of northern Nigeria hitherto regularly bombed, are now no-go areas for the monsters. Efforts are now being made to send the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) back to their villages. However, there has been an upsurge in the criminal activities by herdsmen and kidnappers as well as other bandits across the country particularly the south.  Some Boko Haram insurgents masquerading as herdsmen have like ‘soldier’ ants, taken over the south. The country is certainly under siege! This is most unprecedented in the chequered history of Nigeria. Please for God’s sake, I’m not playing politics here! It is President Buhari’s number one responsibility to reduce this ugliness cum primitiveness to the barest minimum as the Chief Security Officer of Nigeria. The current rate of insecurity is capable of rubbishing the few successes he has so far recorded despite the huge challenges his administration inherited from previous governments. High rate of unemployment and under-employment, poorly distributed national wealth, corruption (fiscal, economic, and political) and non-adherence to federal character principles with regard to strategic posts encourage or promote suspicions, tensions, mistrusts and gloom. Similarly, there is need for greater policing of our international borders for economic and security reasons among others. The illegal entry of some foreigners especially of Libyan extraction to wreak havoc on the country is most unacceptable by all civilised standards.

    Nigerians need peace which is becoming too scarce to experience in the country today. Nobody respects a country where human lives are being wasted so regularly as if the leadership is clueless. The savagery of the attacks by bandits across the country is second to none in the modern global village. The president should do much more and quickly too. Nigeria is certainly in a shambles! State governors and other main stakeholders are now telling their people to resort to self-help as killer herdsmen, kidnappers, armed robbers and other miscreants mow down innocent Nigerians in a most barbaric manner. Thus, for example, the Zamfara State governor in frustration declared on June 15, that he had relinquished his responsibility as Chief Security Officer. According to newspaper reports, police officers in his state were/are only taking orders from Abuja. The citizens of Zamfara State are being killed like rats while the governor is helpless. The Ekiti State governor also told his people a few days ago that they must be ready to defend themselves. Governor Fayose said this during the Yoruba Koya Movement meeting aimed at addressing the incessant kidnapping and armed robberies especially in the Iwaraja (Osun State) and Aramoko (Ekiti State) axis.  The locality is now a nightmare to motorists.

    The lamentation and helplessness of the above governors and their colleagues who are too cowardly to speak out or are feigning loyalty to Abuja are a damning indictment of the federal government.  There is need to de-politicise and de-centralise Nigerian security architecture with pinpoint accuracy. These are some of the issues our president should worry more about instead of granting national awards to self-proclaimed heroes of the June 12 revolution.

    Prices of foodstuffs are increasing daily despite the rhetoric of improvement in the economy by the National Bureau of Statistics. Over 100 million Nigerians are experiencing absolute poverty. A minimum standard of nutrition, shelter, health and other personal necessities cannot be afforded by them. The jailing recently of Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame, former governors of Plateau and Taraba states respectively by Justice Adebukola Banjoko was another plus for the President. But the winds of sanity/change must blow across Nigeria starting probably from the presidency down to the local government level where corruption walks on all fours like a lion. Again, for the president to enjoy peace of mind, the EFCC and ICPC should not be seen and/or used as tools to conduct a personal vendetta against perceived political enemies /antagonists. All thieves must be punished in accordance with the rule of law.

     

    • Professor Ogundele writes from Dept. of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Ibadan.

  • You deserve second term, Ondo APC tells President Buhari

    The Ondo state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday inaugurated its new State Executive Committee (SEC).

    The event was coordinated by the state chairman of the party, Ade Adetimehin, with the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Ifedayo Abegunde, Commissioner for Agriculture, Otunba Adegboyega Adefarati and other state officials in attendance.

    Adetimehin hailed President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for tackling the various challenges confronting the country with sincerity and dedication.

    According to him, the integrity of Buhari, especially his zero tolerance for corruption, is unprecedented.

    Adetimehin said: “The long period of looting spree and pillaging of the country under the corruption-infested administration of the former President Goodluck Jonathan cannot be curtailed within four years.

    “It will be in the interest of the country to return President Buhari and the ruling APC to office for another four year, after the 2019 elections.”

    The chairman recounted the “unwholesome” activities and crises that characterised the political space during the last executive committee, especially during the governorship primary and election in 2016.

    He added: “The then leadership of the party displayed a condemnable act of sabotage and gross indiscipline by engaging in anti-party activities to deny the party and its candidate the deserved victory which had been ordained by God.”

    The chairman hailed the national electoral officers saddled with the responsibility of the various congresses in the state for doing an excellent job.

  • Nigerians intellectually aggressive, economically ambitious – Buhari 

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday said that Nigeria’s strongest selling point remained an “intellectually aggressive and economically ambitious’’ populace that always seeks self-improvement and self-actualization in any part of the world.

    Speaking in Rabat, Morocco during an audience with the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Morocco, Saadeddine Othmani, at the Royal Guest Palace, President Buhari said Nigeria’s “visionary and resilient population’’ works hard to always position the country for more growth, fueled by a largely youthful group that continually wants to contribute to development.

    In a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and publicity, Garba Shehu, the President said “Nigerians are intellectually aggressive and economically ambitious. I received some of our students here yesterday and I am really impressed with the zeal and fearlessness they exuded.

    “In Nigeria we have a very young and aggressive population and we are working very hard to create the enabling and inclusive environment for their contributions to be better appreciated,’’ the President told the Prime Minister.

    Read Also:Buhari returns to Abuja from Morocco

    He also said his government is harnessing the human and material resources available in the country, especially in the educational and agricultural sectors, while seeking partnerships with countries that can explore the huge potentials in Nigeria.

    The President noted that Nigeria was already on the verge of an agricultural revolution as the importation of rice had been cut down by 90 per cent in 18 months.

    “We need to do more to improve our statistics on food production and graciously, the weather has been auspicious in the last couple of years for agricultural growth. We are happy that through partnership with you and hard work the price of fertilizer is already down by 50 per cent,’’ he said.

    On the three agreements signed during his visit, namely, Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline project, vocational training in agriculture and building of a chemical plant in Nigeria, the President assured the Prime Minister that they will receive appropriate attention.

    “We have a huge gas reserve in Nigeria, and we should be known more for gas exploration than for crude oil. So, we are happy with the new partnership with Morocco,’’ he added.

    In his remarks, the Prime Minister said his country had always been impressed by Nigeria’s intellectual zeal and strength, noting that “many Moroccans appreciate the intellectual contribution of Nigerians, especially in literary works.’’

    “Your visit to our country is historic and we are looking forward to more partnerships, especially among our universities, which would further consolidate our relationship,’’ Othman said.

    President Buhari also met with the head of the Moroccan legislature, Habib El Malki and the President of the Advisers on Commerce, Ben Chemmas.

    The Nigerian leader ended his two-day visit to the Kingdom of Morocco with a visit to the mausoleum where he laid wreaths on the tombs of past kings.

  • Buhari is (not) playing politics with June 12? Four reasons why Nigerians should ask for more clarifications from the president

    Moving promptly and directly to the four items listed below, let me state that for me, it is beyond question and beyond dispute that President Buhari’s declaration of June 12 as Democracy Day is a deliberate move to get the vote of the Southwest in the 2019 elections. Those who so desire can debate whether this is true as much and as long as they wish. For me, there is not the slightest doubt that politics, opportunistic politics, is behind the declaration. Going beyond that issue, in the following brief notes, I ask all patriots, pro and anti-Buhari, to ask themselves these and similar questions concerning how, beyond the symbolism of June 12, Buhari has, both in the past and in the future, conducted and will henceforth conduct his political career in accordance with the substance of the legacy of June 12. June 12 was and is a powerful symbol; but beyond that, it had and has a content, a substance. Anyone can applaud Buhari for the symbolism; but please, let us make him and his supporters address the substance as well.

    First reason: Buhari has never shown any evidence that he was/is inspired by the legacy of June 12 – what is the evidence that he will do so if he is reelected in 2019?

    To be fair to him, Buhari has never issued any anti-June 12 or anti-Abiola declarations or sentiments, as has, for instance, Olusegun Obasanjo on many occasions. But then, on how many issues or events of great importance to the nation’s well-being has Buhari ever made any declarations? Moreover, only a couple of weeks ago, Buhari made a statement of ringing praise to the memory of Sani Abacha! For me, the single most telling evidence we have that Buhari has never been inspired by or will in future be inspired by the legacy of June 12 is the fact that on many occasions, he has stated bluntly that he has absolutely no regrets about anything and everything that he did as a military ruler. His violently antidemocratic and draconian decrees, especially Decrees No 2 and No 4 of 1982? The notorious case of the 53 suitcases that his ADC helped the Emir of Gwandu to smuggle into the country at a time when one of Buhari’s decrees made smuggling a crime punishable by extremely harsh jail sentence? Buhari’s loyal service to Abacha? The open and unapologetic difference with which Buhari treated political detainees of the NPN and the UPN/NPP/PRP? Buhari has no regrets about any of them. Which means that given the chance, he would carry out these heinous acts and policies again.

    And then, of course, there is the second coming of Buhari. Since I will say more about this issue in some of the notes below, permit me to simply state here that Buhari’s fundamental attitude to power has not changed one bit. This is evident in both great and small things. In great things, we can cite the example of the fact that he has never felt obliged to explain or justify his actions and inactions to either his party or members of his administration that do not belong to the small cabal of his kinsmen and diehard loyalist that rule the country with his blessing. With regard to relatively small things, there is the case of his own wife’s frustration with her husband’s indifference to the harm being caused by Buhari’s reliance on opportunists, lickspittles and groupies who have no understanding and no belief in the much touted “Change” agenda of the ruling party and the president.

     

    Second reason: June 12 united the South and the North under a genuinely progressive movement and agenda – but Buhari squandered the chance to renew and reinvent that legacy by instituting the most sectionalist and nepotistic administration in Nigeria’s political history.

    One of the strangest, most baffling things about the second coming of Buhari is the fact that he has been completely indifferent to accusations that, by his actions and behaviour, he has divided the North and the South far beyond any other ruler in our post-independence political history. Here are some of the facts given by those making this charge against the president. There is not a single Southerner in the inner cabinet of four or five men who run the country in Buhari’s name and with his blessing. The authoritative members of the National Security Council are all Northerners. There are no notable Northern progressives in either Buhari’s cabinet or the appointments that he has made to public offices at the federal level; with few exceptions, virtually all the Northerners that he has elevated to positions of authority in his administration have their antecedents in conservative parties and formations of the past and the present like the NPC, the NPN and the Arewa Consultative Forum. Correspondingly, the self-identified Southern progressives in his administration were chosen, not for their progressivism but because Buhari inherited them from other parties when the APC was formed. And at any rate, the personal loyalties of such men to him count far more to Buhari than their progressivism. I am talking here of people like the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Raji Fashola, Rotimi Amaechi and Kayode Fayemi.

    With this profile in mind, one could argue that Buhari has also not united the conservatives of the North and the South as previous civilian and military regimes had done at many crucial junctures in the country’s political history. But where does that leave us? Well, let me share one concern that this trend in Buhari’s second coming has imposed on me: under Buhari, Northern and Southern progressives are as far apart as they have ever been. As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to state that under Buhari, Southern progressives are losing whatever awareness and knowledge they had about the traditions, the heritage of deep and honourable progressivism in the North. All Southern progressives see around Buhari are known and unknown figures from conservative bastions of the North. This is one of the most important aspects of the legacy of June 12, the closing of ranks between progressives of the North and the South. What is Buhari doing to it? He is shredding it, not embracing and enlarging it.

    Third reason: Like Murtala Muhammed, Abiola was transformed by June 12 from his old self to a catalyst for Nigeria’s greatness at home and abroad; Buhari remains who he has always been, a blusterer with a very poor understanding of Nigeria and the world.

    Who remembers now that initially, M.K.O. Abiola was generally regarded as an agent of imperialist control of Africa and Africans and a loyal follower of the Northern conservatism that dominated his party, the NPN? Who remembers that to the very end of his life, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti hated and despised Abiola for precisely these reasons? To this day, there are many radicals and progressives from the North and the South who fought for the implementation of the mandate of June 12 but who remain skeptical whether M.K.O. really changed and would have fulfilled the dreams and aspirations foisted on him by the unexpected political windfall of June 12. We shall never know, one way or another. But this much we know, Abiola was very much aware of who and what he had been; and he gave every indication that he would be guided by the hopes and aspirations he had awoken throughout the length and breadth of the land.

    What of Muhammadu Buhari? Has he given any indication, any at all, that the nationwide plurality that brought him to power after three previous, hopelessly futile attempts that he has been changed by that victory? Is the answer to this question not a resounding No? And has the disappointment caused by Buhari’s failure to live up to the promises of the campaign and the realignment of forces that brought him to power not been spread across the political landscape of the nation and the wider world?

    We thought we were getting a new person, a person who had been changed by the inescapable fact that only by widening his base and making change the guiding light of his rule could he hope to carry the nation and the world with him. But who and what did we get? A ruler who comes into power with the ringing promise of curbing and even wiping out corruption who cannot curb corruption in his own administration. A ruler who remains silent and inactive for weeks and months while marauding killers of herdsmen wipe out entire farmsteads and farming folk in hundreds and thousands, again and again and again. Is the nation with Buhari today? And the world in general?

    Has Buhari not shown that he has a very poor understanding of Nigeria and Nigerians? And his understanding of the world? Hasn’t the world lost interest in him, in his ability and will to understand the demands of the mandate of 2015? The denunciations of his rule that have come from some of those who preceded him in office as Head of State have not drawn an iota of self-scrutiny from Buhari, not to talk of previous followers from his former party, the CPC, who have stated loudly and clearly that the man they see now in Aso Rock is not the man they expected to be there. In the final analysis, here’s the question that Buhari must answer in clarification of his decision to make June 12 Democracy Day: the Mandate of 2015 has been nothing remotely like the Mandate of June 12; on what basis can we assume that a (fresh) Mandate in 2019 will be closer to that of June 12?

    Fourth reason: At the bottom of everything is a genuine concern for the sanctity and dignity of human life, all of human life; Buhari is yet to demonstrate that he has this in his moral and spiritual compass.

    Admittedly, Muhammadu Buhari is very slow to act on anything and everything. Sometimes, when it pleases him, he does not act at all, period. The whole country, the whole world might be in an uproar about something that needs to be done urgently; but Muhammadu Buhari works according to the promptings of an inner clock whose ticking he and he alone hears. It took him more than two months to get his cabinet together in 2015. All the while, apologists for his inertia explained the lugubrious slowness away with the promise that when the cabinet list is eventually released, people would see that the long wait had been worthwhile. When the list was finally announced, with one or two exceptions, it did not contain men and women of any outstanding credentials or experience.

    We shall never know the amount in productivity and development potential that the country has lost on account of Buhari’s fundamental or constitutive laziness and imperturbability. And yet, he has an army of aides, attaches and support staff at his beck and call. We have simply lost count of the number of times when we were told that some file is sitting on his desk, awaiting his perusal and his approval. As I write these words, the file on the former Secretary to the Government of the federation, SGF Babachir David Lawal, is sitting on Buhari’s desk awaiting his perusal and action regarding the humungous sums of money stolen by Lawal. I repeat: the laziness, the slowness of Buhari is constitutive; it is the laziness and slowness of a neo-feudalism that feels and obeys no accountability to the ruled.

    We must draw the line on living with Buhari’s laziness and slowness when it comes to human life. It took him months to finally make a worthy speech about the herdsmen killings of farming folks and the destruction of their livestock and farmlands. Remember how long it took him to actually go and visit some of the devastated communities? When all has been said and done, we must admit that the legacy of June 12 is about the value of the lives of all Nigerians regardless of their ethnicity, their religion, their region, their class and social status, their gender and age. The lives of the herdsmen are as valuable as the lives of the farmers. That means that you must treat the lives of both with the same concern, the same reverence.

    All forms of genuine democracy, June 12 included, are based on this fundamental reverence for life. Buhari has shown abundantly that he comes short when it comes to reverence for life. Where does this leave him in his bid to appropriate the legacy of June 12 for the 2019 elections?

    • Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

     

     

  • There was a time

    •President Buhari’s cautionary tone on the civil war bears contemporary resonance

    President Muhammadu Buhari went down memory lane on a refreshing note on Monday when he was decorated as the Grand Patron of the Nigerian Red Cross Society (NRCS) at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Recalling the tragic Nigerian Civil War (1967 – 1970), in which he played an active role as a commander in the Nigerian Army, the President profusely commended the humane disposition of the then military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon (retd), which probably mitigated the extent of devastation of a war, which nevertheless claimed at least two million lives.

    In the words of President Buhari: “I remember with nostalgia the performance of the Commander-In-Chief, General Gowon. Every commander was given a copy of the Commander-In-Chief’s instructions that we were not fighting enemies but that we were fighting our brothers. And thus, people were constrained to show a lot of restraint”.

    It is unlikely that the majority of the younger generation of officers and men of the Nigerian military and indeed Nigerian youths in general who did not witness the war will ever have heard of this redeeming side of an otherwise gruesome tale, no thanks to the abolition of the teaching of history in our schools. Now that history is being brought back into the country’s school curricula, it will become widely known that there was a time when even an affair as savage as war was conducted with a measure of civility in this same Nigeria today ravaged in many parts by unbelievable levels of barbarity. Hopefully, such lessons from the past can rub positively on the present and the future. Of course, it is not that there were no terroristic, even near genocidal, incidents during the Nigeria/Biafra conflict but these were perhaps fallouts of war and acts of lower level officers and not the deliberate machinations of the military high command.

    This fulsome praise of Gowon by Buhari for the former’s tolerance and wisdom in handling the Igbo secessionist bid while remaining firmly committed to the country’s unity is perhaps some indirect mea culpa for the perceived gruffness and emotional detachment with which he handled the grievances that resulted in the separatist agitations of the banned Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). The President’s speeches and body language at the height of IPOB’s activism gave the impression not only that he was not sensitive enough to some of the genuine grievances of the region but that his administration held the Igbo as a whole responsible for the misguided excesses of a group of immature and excitable youth.

    Hopefully, the President sees his investiture as Grand Patron of the NRCS as imposing on him the moral obligation to be the compassionate leader, indeed father, of the nation as a whole and not partisan to a part of it as many perceive him to be, particularly because of the unchecked murderousness of the Fulani herdsmen. He has the urgent responsibility as Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces to decisively bring an end to the ongoing inexcusable killings by these armed gangs of thousands of Nigerians across the North-Central belt of the country especially.

    More importantly, President Buhari’s statement on the strict professional code of conduct maintained during the civil war should send a strong signal to the military that the reported serial acts of indiscipline, misconduct, impunity and maltreatment of people in its various theatres of operations in recent times will not be tolerated. True, the military is confronted today in many areas by murderous and lawless terrorist gangs. But a professional military like that of Nigeria, which has been internationally acclaimed, must uphold a higher moral ethos without compromising its offensive efficacy.

  • Buhari greets Agbakoba at 65

    President Muhammadu Buhari has sent warm greetings to the former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), on his 65th birthday.

    President Buhari, in a statement by the Special Adviser on Media and publicity, Femi Adesina, joined family members, friends and professional colleagues of the lawyer and human rights activist in celebrating his many achievements over the years, most notably his strong advocacy for the rule of law and a better life for the underprivileged.

    Read Also:Buhari’s declaration: Agbakoba foresees upsets in 2019

    The President commended the legal luminary for his relentless fight for the return of democracy in the country, and his sustained and purposeful effort in ensuring that the principles and practice of good democratic governance become a norm.

    As the former NBA president turns 65, President Buhari believed he has left his footprints in the development history of Nigeria, and has successfully proved his position as a patriot and dependable nationalist.

    The President prayed that the almighty God will grant Mr Agbakoba longer life, more strength and wisdom to keep serving the country.

  • Comeuppance: Where is the power?

    I think Obasanjo should be probed. You see, President Buhari has been very generous and mild towards his predecessors, not wanting to cause discomfort and embarrassment for them out of respect for the positions they held.

    “But, Obasanjo is a man who does not respect himself, who thinks he is the President-General of Nigeria for life and has a right at any time to wade in and be very caustic and publicly insulting to his successors, just because he’s envious of the same position he held. He cannot detach himself from the Presidency.

    “I think he needs to be brought to order. He has been tolerated enough in this country. The President’s remark was very appropriate and more and more should come because Obasanjo ran one of the most corrupt governments this country has ever seen.”

    Prof Itse Sagay (SAN) speaking on ex – President Olusegun Obasanjo in relation to the 16B dollars allegedly spent on electricity during his administration.

    I know it will come to this. I know that Chief Olusegun  Obasanjo will, one day, have his comeuppance but I have always thought that day wouldnt come until a Pharaoh mounts the Nigerian presidency, who knows not Moses. However, as Sagay said, Obasanjo, for his perennial inability to know that there are things statesmen should not say, or say in the manner he says them regardless of who the victim of his virtuperations are, may just have brought comeuppance upon himself much earlier than expected . He may just, this time around, have climbed the tree beyond its leaves, or why the perpetual sanctimony when you are not anywhere near the cleanest  man around? Or could he have forgotten most Nigerians were around during his 8 years in office?

    Can anybody remember President Muhammadu Buhari ever losing his cool, speaking of anybody at all, talk less of his military superior, the way he asked the question: where is the power, unmistakably referring to Obasanjo?

    Having convinced himself that he is the best thing to have ever happened to Nigeria, Obasanjo talks to whoever: clergy, governor or  President, the way he would to his house help. Obasanjo knows no bounds; in his eyes, he is Lord and master; the capo du tuti, of Nigeria. Proceeding from this egomaniacal  mindset therefore, he has written scathing letters to everybody that was ever Head of state of Nigeria, except that he forgot to address one to himself even though he deserved his tirades the most.

    Until governor Ayo Fayose, at a public gathering some years ago, showed him that he is a true born Ekiti, Obasanjo talked down  to state governors as if the federal government and the states are not coordinate arms of government. His repugnant, constant putdown of Ekiti in the days when his favourite song was OMO O LE JO BABA (like father,  like son) was the leitmotif for my long running column, now going on 14 years, to, at least, try put the lie to such a hate- filled campaign of calumny against my place of birth.

    But his encounter with the National Assembly, not once but severally, must be the crown jewel of this self loving man’s contemptuous treatment of others.

    Granted that the 8th Assembly has not been particularly sparkling, how on earth would an internationally respected elder statesman, not a Dick or Harry, describe an arm of government as an “assembly of thieves and looters, a den of corruption by a gang of unarmed robbers”, as he did at the public presentation of Justice Mustapha Akanbi’s autobiography?

    Should a two term President, in deed, anybody at all, if rational, ever open himself to the possibility of having a thoroughly demeaning response like the one he got from those he traduced directed at him?

    For thundered back Hon Abdulrazak Namdas, Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs: “Obasanjo is understandably angry with the National Assembly as an institution, having foiled his ambition for a third-term in office even after trying to corrupt the members with a bribe of at least N50m each.

    He birthed the 4th Assembly with corrupt practices from day one. He bribed every legislator on inauguration in 1999, to vote against late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo. “Have we forgotten the sacks of money displayed on the floor of the House of Representatives, being bribe money paid some honourable members to impeach the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Ghali N’abba? “Have we forgotten that he used his position as President to extort money from businessmen and contractors to his government to build his presidential library?”

    After a public encounter like the above , a Yoruba man of any age, acculturated in the Omoluabi ethos of the race, would be expected to know that enough was enough, and to subsequently weigh his words. No, am not saying he shouldn’t call attention to things going wrong in society, but the ever perspicacious Yoruba say there are ways you call even a simple thing like Baba, so as not to give offence. But all these matter nothing to Obasanjo who, after his latest letter to a Head of state, has been going round all over the country either mouthing inanities, or laying wreaths, bad mouthing a President Buhari who is doing his damnedest to clear the 16- year Augean stable Obasanjo birthed, and nurtured, through the two weak and clueless successors he singly foisted on the country; through the most rigged election the world over as one of them self – confessed and during which period corruption in Nigeria became  systemic, and assumed, industrial scale.

    Reading the EFCC report on the whopping $16billion invested in the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) is very fascinating, indeed. Arising from the fact that the investigation happened during the administration of one of two presidents he foisted on  the country, EFCC went to great lengths to show that Obasanjo knew nothing, whatever., about the huge expenditure. The report, if possible, would have said somebody else it was, who approved the contracts. But Baba loomed too large in  his administration to let that happen. Take this, for example: EFCC wrote: “After an in-depth investigation and rigorous check on all documents relating to these contracts, the payments made so far, and the contractors handling the project, it is impossible to draw a nexus between the former President, his relations or any front who benefited from the proceeds accruing from the contract payments.”

    Pray, why on earth was this necessary if there wasn’t a determined effort to cover up Obasanjo who, incidentally, established the anti corruption agency besides being the ‘giver’ of the sitting President? Why go to all this length and not let the courts conclude as the EFCC did? What does EFCC take Nigerians for, fools? While the small matter of the

    controversy which surrounded a mere N3.5 billion contract in which

    1. Schneider, an Austrian, petitioned the presidency and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EF-CC) and in which the name of Iyabo, the former president’s daughter featured prominently is on my mind, EFCC should please show Nigerians another report in which an individual has been so cleared ahead a judicial interrogation commences.

    Fortunately, however, clearing Obasanjo was a tall order, as the anti graft commission must explain the following portion of the report: “The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) COULD NOT ACCOUNT FOR THE WHEREABOUTS OF  $1 BILLION”.

    Now if Obasanjo is running round every nook and cranny of Nigeria, not only laying wreaths and ascribing killings to Buhari, but , ipso facto, criminalising him, doesn’t  he know that in pointing one finger at Buhari, four are pointing directly at him? Of course, we all know Obasanjo as consumate master of decoy, claiming, for instance, that  governors were the ones behind his 3rd term project, as if they were the ones hankering after life presidency. By the same logic he now demonizes Buhari for the unfortunate killings for which not even a sadist of a president can be happy, not to talk of instigating, Nigerians must now ask Obasanjo to account for, not 16B dollars about which he has asked Nigerians to head to libraries and bookstores to read his  magnum opus, but the little 1B dollars that has remained untraceable under his watch.

    This is the least he can do for us poor Nigerians out of the 11 Trillion SERAP says PDP burnt on electricity between 1999 – 2015.

    #OURMUMUEDONDO#’

     

  • President Buhari expresses confidence in Nigerian Army’s committment to end killings in Nigeria

    President Muhammadu Buhari has once again expressed his administration’s committment to end every act of killing in the country.

    The globallly recognized first President in Africa who earned the sobriquet from the United States President, Donald Trump made re—affirmed his committeememt to the safety of lives and properties in Nigeria after receiving briefing from the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General TY Buratai at the state house this evening.

    President Buhari who commended the efforts of the Chief of Army Staff in aligning with his vision on security, took to his official Facebook page to express his position of the efforts of the Nigerian Army.

    See full text below:

    I received a briefing from the Chief of Army Staff this afternoon. The Army recently established a new battalion in Birnin-Gwari, Kaduna State, in addition to other deployments in troubled parts of the country. As I’ve assured again and again, our commitment to the peace and security of Nigeria is total.

  • Nigeria’s economy improving, says Buhari 

    …Says future is bright

     

    President Muhammadu Buhari has said that the nation’s economy is steadily improving, as he urged Nigerians to remain optimistic as the future of the country is bright.

    He spoke at a State dinner held Monday, in his honour by the Government of Jigawa State during his two-day working visit to the state.

    In a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and publicity, Garba Shehu, President Buhari called on Nigerians to continue to support his administration’s well thought-out economic policies.

    He said “The future is bright for Nigeria, as the economy has taken a turn for the better, our foreign reserves are almost twice the level we met, boosting investor confidence and stabilising the Naira, and inflation has declined consecutively for more than a year.

    “The Federal government released over N1 trillion for capital projects in 2016 and N1.5 trillion in 2017, figures that are unprecedented in Nigeria’s history,” the President said.

    Read Also:‘Nigeria’s economy is destination of choice’

    President Buhari listed the ‘Shuwarin overpass’ and ‘Dutse-Shuwarin-Kiyawa’ portion of the Kano – Maiduguri expressway as well as the ‘Dutse-Laraba highway extension as part of areas in which Jigawa State has benefited from the federal government’s commitment to infrastructural rejuvenation.

    He commended Governor Mohammed Badaru Abubakar of Jigawa State for emulating his administration’s commitment to infrastructure development despite severely limited resources available to the State.

    The President also lauded the State government for subscribing to the Federal government’s renewable energy master plan by having the largest solar power investment portfolio in the country — the 330 megawatts joint solar power development station situated in Gwiwa Local Government of the State.

    Commending the success of the federal government’s Social Intervention Programme in Jigawa State, the President urged states that are yet to access the over N500 billion budgeted for the scheme due to “its stringent eligibility guidelines” to fully take advantage of the programme.

    He equally lauded Governor Badaru’s efforts as the head of the fertilizer supply and distribution programme which has resulted in “unprecedented availability of fertilizer to farmers at zero level.”

    The President told the governor: “Your Excellency, you have done well. You deserve the support of your people to keep it up.”