The Nation Newspaper

Tag: remember

  • Adesanya: A time to remember

    Chief Abraham Adesanya’s 10th death anniversary is a time to remember and a time to reflect. The elder statesman and pro-democracy activist died at 85 on April 27, 2008.  It is fitting that a symposium on “Leadership and the future of Nigeria” to mark the remembrance will take place on May 2 at the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos.  A statement by the chairman of the publicity committee, Prof Adebayo Williams, described Adesanya as “a great Nigerian nationalist, exemplary Yoruba patriot and leader, statesman, philosopher, moral avatar and illustrious chairman of the Afenifere and National Democratic Coalition (NADECO).”

    Interestingly, the remembrance will be spiced with a book of tributes    ”from the public as well as friends, associates, acquaintances, admirers, well-wishers and fellow travellers of Senator Abraham Adesanya.” These tributes to Adesanya are like pictures that capture not only his life and times but also significant parts of Nigeria’s political history in which he played historic roles.  When democratic rule was restored in 1999 after a 16-year period of military domination, there was no doubt that Adesanya was qualified to be named among the heroes of democracy.  He was a giant who made a gigantic contribution to the efforts that won the battle for democracy.

    Former Governor of Ogun State, Chief Olusegun Osoba, underlined the value of the book of tributes, saying, “The story of his life and the colour and fragrance of his politics are worth memorialising.” Osoba said in his tribute: “I am sure there are records of Chief Adesanya’s many speeches and writings on the subject of restructuring that can guide the honest scholar and politician on the way forward… I have lamented the dearth of published works on the political philosophies and experiences of our political leaders. I would have been happy to read first-hand while Chief Adesanya was alive some of his experiences in politics especially in the days of resistance to military rule when he led NADECO.” He added:  “It would have been thrilling to hear from him how he escaped the assassin’s bullets when his car was shot at in broad daylight in the dark days of Abacha dictatorship on January 14, 1997. What was his experience like in detention at Divisional Police Headquarters, Club Road, Ikoyi, and at the Police Medical Centre Bourdillon Road, Ikoyi? It would have been great to hear from him his encounters with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo whilst in office in the early days of the Fourth Republic.”

    Talking of how Adesanya survived a gun attack that defined his importance as a progressive combatant, Yinka Odumakin, National Publicity Secretary, Afenifere, told an interesting story in his tribute:  ”I once heard from him the story of native doctor in Ijebu-Igbo who used to call people to death. His modus operandi was pouring water in a calabash, placing a stick in the hands of a virgin girl. Once he calls the name of his victim and the head appears in the calabash, the girl will hit with the stick. The person died instantly.  But he got more than what he bargained for the day he was to practice his act on Abraham Adesanya .The girl was ready with his stick as the man called “Abraham Adesanya.” The virgin told him she could see two heads in the calabash, including the Babalawo’s, and asked which one to hit. He told her not to touch any! His escape from Abacha bullets earned him the sobriquet Apamaku (The one you kill that doesn’t die).”

     High-profile political player Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, in his tribute, gave an insight into one of his political battles that involved Adesanya: “Of course, we did not always agree on all issues. For instance, in the run-up to the 2003 election, Afenifere wanted the two dominant groups in the AD in Lagos State to share all elective positions on a 60:40 basis. The vast majority of rank and file party members, however, insisted on every interested party member testing their strength in free and fair party primaries. I had no choice but to go along with the decision of the majority in the interest of intra-party democracy and fairness. That decision, I believe, was one of the reasons why Lagos was the only state in the South West that the PDP was unable to capture in 2003. Even though, we did not go along with the position of Afenifere in that instance, Pa Adesanya did not hold it personally against me or the Lagos State leadership of the AD. He understood that it was a matter of principle.”

     Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Commonwealth Secretary-General (1990- 2000), said in his tribute: “Here, I would recall a personal anecdote of his powerful statement in defence of me in the Senate in 1983 when some members of the Senate Screening Committee, for questionable reasons, tried to mess me up during the Ministerial confirmation hearing that preceded my appointment by President Shagari as Nigeria’s Foreign Minister. Significantly, Senator Adesanya’s stout defence of me occurred even before he met me in person.”

    It is thought-provoking that this celebration of Adesanya, his ideas and ideals, is coming at a time when the meaning of progressivism has been corrupted and the definition of a progressive has been degraded.  What would Adesanya have thought of today’s self-defined progressives who pay lip service to the noble pursuit of progress?

    Adesanya played exemplary leadership roles in Afenifere and NADECO that should inspire the leaders of today. But the times have changed and things have changed. Afenifere, the Yoruba organisation that was known for its progressive essence, is essentially now a shadow of its former self. NADECO, the patriotic pro-democracy movement that was known for its punching power, was ironically a casualty of democracy and has failed to rise from the ashes.

    Ten years after Adesanya’s death, Nigeria is still grappling with the national question and structural issues.  Recollections of his life and times should inspire reflections on the nexus between progressive leadership and the progress of Nigeria. The ultimate tribute to the giant from Ijebu-Igbo is that his legacy is still relevant.

     

  • Fireworks as activists, others remember Gani

    On January 15, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja Branch held the 14th Chief Gani Fawehinmi Annual Lecture. The yearly event is held on the day the late Fawehinmi was called to bar, ADEBISI ONANUGA reports.

    Lawyers, activists and students from tertiary institutions around the country converged on Lagos last week for the 14th Chief Gani Fawehinmi Annual Lecture. The event held at the Lagos Airport Hotel, Ikeja with the theme, “Federalism, Restructuring and Good Governance: Striking A Balance”. In attendance was the the former General Secretary of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Chief Frank Ovie Kokori, who was chairman of the event, while the royal father of the day was the Adeboruwa of Igbogbo, Oba Semiu Orimadegun Kasali, Femi Falana (SAN) among others.

    In his opening remarks, Kokori recalled the events surrounding the June 12, 1993 elections won by the late Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola and the nationwide strike which he led his union to embark on and joined by Nigerians to get former General Ibrahim Babangida to revalidate the results of the election.

    According to him, the June 12 elections were “the freest and cleanest election” ever held in the country.

    “June 12 was when Nigerians stood up to liberate themselves and not October 1, 1960 (Independence Day)”, he said.

    Kokori lamented that the military annulled that election. According to him, Nigeria never had the experience of freedom fighters like many other African countries and as such cannot appreciate what June 12 meant.

    Kokori said he watched  Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome Kuti, Femi Falana and others carry placards to protest the annulment of the election. He said if that had happened on Downing Street, London, those in authority would read their messages and listen to them.

    Kokori said rather than join the protesters on the street, he called his ‘kitchen cabinet’ and they did what needed to be done, which was to implement the strike that paralysed the country for several weeks.

    Veering from the strike, Kokori lamented that that he was being denied a federal appointment. “Me, symbol of freedom and democracy,” he said.

    The former NUPENG scribe explained that sometime in September last year, he got a call from the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, informing him that President Muhammadu Buhari had  appointed him Chairman of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), an organisation set up to manage Nigerian workers’ pension funds.

    He said the minister congratulated him and invited him to Abuja for the inauguration of the NSITF board.

    Kokori said he arrived in Abuja with other members of the board, only for the minister to inform them that he was going for his mother’s burial and that the inauguration has been postponed.

    He said he had been to Abuja several times but the inauguration is yet to hold.

    “Up till today and four months after my appointment by the President, the board is yet to be inaugurated,”he said.

    According to another speaker at the event, Seun Kuti, son of the late Afro beat king, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Nigeria is still under western imperialism, which he said has also taken over the courts. He claimed that a magistrate court in Lagos refused to allow him bail a friend who was “unjustly” accused. Seun said the complainant, after getting his friend locked up, never appeared in court. According to him, the justice system in Nigeria does not represent Nigerians but western imperialists.

    Seun Kuti, who was ‘yabbing  satirically’ like his late father, took a swipe at the government saying that  the constitution did not make room for restructuring and that the laws have no room for federalisim.

    “It is unfortunate that we motherland people just accept whatever name and appellation given to us by the western powers,” he said.

    To him, “there cannot be true federalism, restructuring and good governance until those of us at the bottom start resisting those perpetuating corruption at the top”.

    However, while the lecture lasted, there was nothing in the air to indicate that Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), one of the persons invited as a contributor to the main lecture delievered by a former Dean, Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Prof. Demola Popoola, was going to have an unholy welcome.

    Chief Ozekhome, who arrived at the venue at about 1:10pm, was stopped from entering the hall by protesters comprising  of some youth and students who accused him of defending corrupt politicians, calling him unprintable names. The incident interrupted the keynote lecture being delievered by Prof Popoola for more than 20 minutes.

    The protesters berated Chief Ozekhome for defending personalities including Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose, former First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan, Senate President Bukola Saraki among others, who they labeled as corrupt, contrary to the ideals for which the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi stood for.

    To them, the presence of the learned Silk was derogatory to Fawehinmi’s memory.

    It took the intervention of Falana, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Ikeja Chairman Mr Adeshina Ogunlana and Mr Mohammed Fawehinmi to bring the situation under control.

    Mohammed calmed the protesting youths by recalling that his late father did not believe in violence.

    He said Fawehinmi would not have approved what they did because Ozekhome was at the event for a purpose.

    “This gathering is a democratic gathering and it is a gathering in which security should not  restrict anybody”, he said, adding that he was about nine years old when Ozekhome was working as a counsel in his late father’s chamber.

    Ozekhome, who later addressed the gathering, told them that he was very close to Fawehinmi and that together they formulated and started the publication, “Nigerian weekly Law Report”.

    He said Gani did not believe in oppression, repression and tyranny in whatever form, adding, :”Gani fought across the country handling many cases including controversial ones.”

    He recalled that when, in 1983, the NBA said lawyers should not defend alleged corrupt politicians under the administration of General Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon when they were fighting corruption, “Gani said No; these people are entitled to their rights.

    “By Section 36 of the Constitution, every person’s innocence is presumed; I was with Gani when we were defending the so-called corrupt politicians,” among who he said was Folorunsho Kila.

    His address was, however, punctured by the protesters who shouted  “lies, lies, lies’’ even as the senior advocate told the protesters that he cannot be intimidated and called them hired protersters.

    Afterwards, Falana clarified Ozekhome’s statement on Gani, which he said should not be misunderstood to mean that Gani was a defender of  corruption.

    Falana said Gani  took on some cases to expose corruption and corrupt politicians. “So that we don’t go away with the very misleading impression that Gani was a defender of corrupt people. No! And I am going to correct this. For those that Gani defended, Gani never went to any court; he never filed stay of proceedings to frustrate the system as it is the culture now.

    “Gani never defended anybody tried by the EFCC or the ICPC. He called a few of us and said, ‘If we cannot help to kill corruption in Nigeria, we must never frustrate the little attempt being made by Nuhu Ribadu and others fighting corruption in Nigeria’ and that was Gani for you”,  Falana said.

    According to the Silk, but for Gani, there would have been too much impunity in the country.

    He said: “The country operates a class law. If a poor man is killed, they call it murder but if a rich man is killed, they call it assassination”.

    “If we are celebrating Gani, we must be able to  stand for what he stood for, which is good governance. If we are talking about restructuring, we should not be recycling same people that brought us to the level we are today.”

    The erudite lawyer said political restructuring is not possible without first getting economic restructuring in order to liberate the people.

    Earlier,  Prof.  Popoola, in his paper  titled, “ Re-Inventing the Nigerian State: Imperatives, Prospects and Challenges of Federalism, Restructuring and Good Governance” agreed with Falana that  the country cannot have meaningful restructuring without first attaining economic restructuring.

    He observed that beyond the security question, the corporate existence of the Nigerian state,  is under threat from various sources.

    He noted that there “is no country in the world today, which is not torn by civil war, yet whose basis of corporate existence (has been) subjected to such vociferous and persistent attackss’ by various sections of its citizenry, as that of Nigeria.

    According to him, some of the issues that have been raised go to the historical basis of the nation’s existence as a country.

    “In addressing these issues, it is imperative that we come to terms with the substance of the historical processes which had produced our ethnic groups and the Nigerian polity as well as reflect on the mosaic nature of the ethnic and cultural geography of the county”, he advised.

    He remarked that  Nigeria and other African countries were programmed to fail by the colonial masters right from the beginning, with distorted and disarticulated structures and a marginal location and role in the global order.

    Pointing out that the political environment at independence was “a set up” , the learned professor of international law explained that this was why at independence, the state inherited was “non-hegemonic and lacked the capacity to create the sort of environment that would have allowed public policy to be rational, sustainable and effective.

    “Besides, Africa did not inherit an environment that was conductive to democracy growth, and development.

    “The custodian of state power seemed also set up to fail.  They lacked economic power, their political power was fragile, and they were opportunistic and incapable of competing with powerful and entrenched profit and hegemony seeking transactional corporations.

    “The few that opted for progressive policies were humiliated, frustrated or eliminated. The result was that African policy makers and leaders moved, as it were from one error to the other. As they were able to benefit from the existing dire conditions, they resisted all calls for change”, he stated.

    Nevertheles, he noted that Nigeria still has a brilliant destiny. “In the historical evolution of nations, there are always dark and frosty moments when it might be difficult to see beyond the present challenges Nigeria, for now, may be a country of contradictions, “embodying plenty of painful realities and beautiful dreams”.

    He added, “freedom for the people, that is what Gani stood for and pursued with dogged determination in his life time. The struggle must not be allowed to die even as we continue to celebrate this enigma of our time”, he emphasised.

  • December to remember

    SIR: Since this administration came in 2015, it’s been one Christmas one trouble for Nigerians. December in Nigeria is now synonymous with fuel scarcity. At this time, no one knows the direction to the mélange but there has been blame game oscillating among the powerbrokers –power tussle among the federal government and its petrol-related agencies.

    Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) claims that there is abundant product in stock, Pipeline and Product Marketing Company (PPMC) affirm the claim saying that fuel vessels were discharging the commodity in ports across the country. Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA) refute the claim saying that none of its members have fuel in their depots and tanks nationwide while both Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) and Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) substantiate DAPPMA’s claim. And then the one-day strike embarked upon by the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) as if to rub salt to the sore of Nigerians.

    All of these named and unnamed agencies are just tossing us like a game, thereby making our December a bleak one!

    My quick response to the plea by President Muhammadu Buhari for Nigerians to be patient with his government is that there’s an extent to which Nigerians can endure. These stories are too much for our brain to fathom, it’s agonizing! Vice President Yemi Osinbajo too had, during one of his on-the-spot assessments to filling stations in Lagos, appealed to Nigerians to bear with their government. Alas, without conventional war, Nigeria is having a War Room to jaw jaw in the name of resolving fuel crisis.

    Where do we go from here? When other oil producing countries smile to the bank, we struggle for fuel here – sometimes shelling out between N250 and N400 for a litre of fuel. What a shame of a nation!

    As if it is a coup d’état, government agencies, insist on living fat on one’s hard-earned resources during the season: Police with their ‘stop and search’; road safety personnel for offence(s) never committed; electricity distribution personnel requesting for payment bills for services they didn’t render! You look at the other side of the world via the internet, but the network is epileptic and the National Communications Commission does nothing, December carnival boys are ubiquitous, not leaving out both day and night marauders, who believe this is their time to rob Peter to pay Paul – everyone wants to take money home!

    What a way to spend December!

     

    • Bakenne Nureni,

    Abeokuta.

  • ‘Remember the poor’

    The Provost, Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina, Lagos, the Anglican Church, the Very Revd. Adebola Ojofeitimi, has challenged Christians to continue to remember the poor, helpless and victims of disasters and violence in our country.

    Ojofeitimi said this at the Christmas Carol of Nine Lessons organised by the Island Club, Victoria-Island, Lagos.

    The carol night tagged Carol of Unity and Good tidings brought together members of the club, families, friends, clerics and featured bible teachings, music, orchestra and prophetic prayers. The choir members who were dressed in English wears led the worshipers in different Christmas songs with sound instrumentalists. Leaders of the club were also on ground to take some of the songs to the admiration of the audience.  Clerics from different denomination took the lessons.

    Ojofeitimi said that Christians should spread the act of love that brought Jesus Christ to the world to save the world from sin and its impeding judgment of hell fire.

    He said: “Let us remember the hungry, the poor, jobless, the oppressed, the sick, the lonely, the aged, little children, the bereaved and those who know not the Lord Jesus or those who love him not and who by sin have grieved his heart of love.”

    He advised that Christians must continue to light their environment with the teaching and life of Jesus, adding that “Let us continue to remind the world that Jesus is coming back again and for those that refuse his love today will end up in damnation when he comes.”

    In his words, the president of the club, Mr. Olabanjo Oladapo, said that the Christmas Carol is to remind members that Christmas does not end with eating and drinking but the lessons and life of Jesus must be evident in daily living of the believer.

     

  • A week to remember

    A week to remember

    Last week was indeed a week to remember – on the political scene.

    Former Deputy Senate President Ibrahim Mantu –  remember him? – was gracious enough to let us into the secret of his new-found spiritual fortune.  He said with the confident demeanour of a Bar Beach preacher: “I’m now born again. Whatever I say now is the truth. Some people came to the PDP with nothing and left with billions… . We need to be sober and apologise for what we have done wrong in the past.”

    He wasn’t done. Mantu went on after that arresting preamble: “After fasting and prayer; I fasted for 30 days and nights, asking God to show me who would lead the party. God showed me Adeniran.

    “Let’s now look forward and make sure that we elect a credible chairman. We should make sure that nobody shortchanges us at the national convention.”

    Some leading parapsychologists have since confirmed that Mantu’s apparitional experience, which some have described as mere hallucinations resulting from a long hibernation in political solitude, is real. Ever seen a born again liar? The PDP, going by the Mantu theory, should go into the convention for the acclamation of Professor Tunde Adeniran who seem to have snatched away the prize even before the race begins.

    Will the PDP, sober and contrite, listen to Mantu ? Will the former largest party in Africa beg Nigerians for forgiveness?

    PDP ran Nigeria for 16 years as part of its plan to rule for 60 unbroken years. It was on the way to fulfilling this self-appointed mission to perdition when nature supervened to halt the gravy train. Now the party is threatening to return to power in 2019 – apparently to finish up what it started.  Nigerians have been put on notice.

    Concerning Mantu’s assertion that some people came to the PDP as poor as a church rat and left as rich as dwarves:  Are the anti-graft agencies slumbering? Mantu has joined the growing army of whistle blowers. He needs to name these billionaires. Who are they? Will the EFCC accept the challenge to invite Mantu to help out in the investigation?

    You may accuse him of inconsistency and some other minor indiscretions for which our leading politicians are constantly criticised. But you can’t claim that Mantu is naïve, vacuous and untruthful. He surely knows what he is talking about. He is now born again; remember?

    Talking about being born again, the former Deputy Senate President must have by now forgiven Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai who once accused him of demanding a bribe – an allegation he vehemently denied but on which he won little sympathy. In the heat of the allegation, Mantu threatened to sue El-Rufai for alleged defamation. He never did.

    Reason,  as usual in such matters of  integrity and politics, prevailed, I suspect.

    Also last week, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) stepped up its battle to ensure the good people of Kogi West exercise their power to recall Senator Dino Melaye.

    Unable to serve the senator the legal papers for his recall, INEC officials stormed the National Assembly and dumped the documents at his door. But the rambunctious lawmaker insisted that the law was on his side.

    He has been unusually withdrawn since the recall battle hit a crucial stage. Will the INEC action cure Melaye of his kindergarten excesses? To his opponents, he is an insufferable loudmouth who suddenly found himself in a position of importance after a successful foray into the rent-a-crowd trade. His supporters hail him as a loyal bodyguard to the Senate leadership. How many will shed tears for him, should he be forced out?

    Also last week, former President Goodluck Jonathan took some time off the lecture circuit on which he has been so active to serve notice that he would speak on how and why PDP lost the 2015 election that swept him out of office.

    With unusual eloquence, Dr Jonathan told a delegation of former speakers who visited him: “PDP is still the strongest party. We know the reason why we lost. People may be writing left and right; at the appropriate time, some of these things would be properly addressed because of history,

    “There are certain things you don’t write now because it would be misunderstood as if you are playing politics. After some years, five or eight years when the beneficiaries have left, you can state it in writing and people will not fight you.”

    How very disappointing!  Is His Excellency afraid of an intellectual fight? What is so sacred about PDP’s loss that is too big for his presidential mouth to say? If we have to wait for “eight years when the beneficiaries have left”, what then is the PDP’s threat to return to power all about – empty, Ibadan motor park threat of touts?

    How long will it take Dr Jonathan to put together his memoirs? The other time he spoke about being “caged”. The nation is eagerly awaiting details of his days in power. Who caged him? Was he caged physically or spiritually? Or by his own indiscreet devices?

    A prominent PDP chief told me yesterday of his plan to hire the famous musician Charly Boy (does he still play music?) to mobilise a large army of okada riders and other members of his Our Mumu Don Do group for a huge 21-day rally to force Dr Jonathan to shed his fears and talk. I wish him all the best in this venture.

    Of all the events of last week, the most exciting – and moving, many would insist – was Ekiti State Governor Ayo  Fayose’s threat to join the yet-to-be-opened  2019 presidential race. His Excellency announced his intention to run in Abuja. With him were some party stalwarts and a crowd of supporters, many of them from his home state and obviously grateful beneficiaries of his much envied Stomach Infrastructure programme – going by their protruding tummies and robust cheeks.

    Former Aviation Minister Femi Fani-Kayode spared some time from his court matters to add colour to the event. So did  Otunba (sorry, I take that back; a slip there) Dr Iyiola Omisore, who an uninformed fellow said was shifting in his seat because EFCC boys could storm the place any moment.

    Dr Tope Aluko – yes; the one who went on television to display with so much bravado how he claimed the election that brought Fayose to office was rigged – was also there to lend him a hand. There were many other dignitaries who were falling over one another to shake hands with the man of the moment.

    Renowned for his integrity, Fayose vowed to defeat President Muhammadu Buhari and fight corruption with greater vigour. God, said the governor, told him that he would lead the country. On that, some innocent commentators retorted: “Will God be so benevolent?”

    With a straight face devoid of any emotion, the governor said: “My party leaders, standing before you is Peter ‘The Rock’ Ayodele Fayose, the man already destined by God to take Nigeria out of the present political and economic stagnation.”

    An attentive politician remarked: “The Rock”? Where is Peter Obi?’’

    Fayose did not see zoning as a stumbling block to his ambition. He likened himself to the biblical Joseph, stressing that God had ordained him to win the much coveted trophy. Besides, he said the party should not beg aspirants from the North to show interest in the race. He also reeled off a list of politicians from the North who ran in 1999 and 2003 when the ticket was zoned to the South.

    Our elders are right; one’s enemy will never kill a big game. Instead of admiring Fayose’s courage, some political pundits, who have never got it right, went to town. They said he was in the race to prevent any major calamity that might assail his future. “They are after me because they don’t want me to run o,” the pundits are already quoting Fayose as saying.

    Why can’t he settle down and find a way of paying the state’s suffering workers? they wonder. They seem to have forgotten that other states are also owing workers. Should paying salaries be elevated above the divine task of saving Nigeria? Is it a personal matter? Is Fayose the one owing them?

    Trust his supporters and admirers who number in millions. Ever since His Excellency’s announcement, they have been celebrating. The Stomach Infrastructure programme will now be a national affair. All Nigerians will be well fed with chicken and rice handed out occasionally by the president himself.

    Such delicacies will no longer be the exclusive preserve of the rich and powerful. To hell with roads, schools, hospitals and all such distractions.

    Never again will the budget be stuck at the National  Assembly. The president will go there, dressed in a casual polo shirt, his own gavel in his hand and a retinue of aides and youths hailing. That way, development will be faster.

    Traders will have a great time. The president will surely be with them every market day. Roadside corn sellers, rejoice. Now your most famous customer will be president. Paradise is on the way.

    Fayose’s shoulders are full of glittering epaulets. “Architect of modern Ekiti, Leader of the Opposition, Ore mekunnu (friend of the poor), Osokomole, Irunmole to’n je jollof rice ati ponmo (the deity that eats jollof rice and cow hide), Apesin”, and more.

    Now coming into your lives as a fixture :  President Ayo Fayose. How does that sound?

     

  • As we remember June 12

    As we remember June 12

    It will be significant for political leaders with familiarity with that date in the country’s evolution to create space for recalling the unfinished business of June 12 struggle for democracy. 

    The interest of today’s piece is to take advantage of being a ‘participant observer’ in creation and propagation of major themes of the struggle for de-militarization of Nigeria’s polity between 1993 and 1998, when General Abdusalaam Abubakar kicked off the famous transition to democracy after the death of Sani Abacha, who supplanted General Ibrahim Babangida as the antagonist of June 12 and of MKO Abiola, the protagonist of the June 12 moment in the country’s political history.

    Given the attention that party politics has given to people in power, especially in the Yoruba region since 1999, it is natural that many of those ruling or governing the region are going to be invited to grace June 12 events across the region. Knowing that themes of fighting corruption, improving national security, and ending unanticipated recession have seized mass communication space in the country, it will not be surprising if such themes do not eclipse the unfinished business of June 12.

    As this page had observed many years since 1999 about June 12 and its memorialisation, only one of three major objectives of June was achieved before the struggle yielded space for transition to democracy. It will be significant for political leaders with familiarity with that date in the country’s evolution to create space for recalling the unfinished business of June 12 struggle for democracy. The gravity of the threat to stability and development in post-military Nigeria requires that those charged to anchor events to mark the day do not use the opportunity to reiterate the ruling party’s bogey that this is not the right time to reform Nigeria. Further, the issue of importance now may not be how many federal institutions and monuments should be named after Abiola and whether June 12 should be made a national holiday from Abeokuta to Abuja and KauraNamoda. As important as all these may be for enhancing the symbolism of June 12 and Abiola’s self-sacrifice for democracy, special attention needs to be drawn to outstanding projects of the June 12 struggle.

    Two major issues de-emphasised by both the midwife for delivery of electoral democracy and many of our own people with overflowing optimism about election without a new constitution are Restructuring and De-militarisation of the polity. Many of the NADECO vanguards for democratisation through restoration of Abiola’s presidential mandate who assured citizens in the Southwest in 1998 that once “our people are elected to govern our region all our problems would be over,” must now know how risky it is to be blessed with an unduly credulous followers.

    It is no exaggeration that even 18 years into a post-military governance, the problems that created June 12 struggle are still with the country. Many people would even say that the problems have gotten worse. The hypnotic power at the disposal of central government at the expense of subnational governments that made it necessary for various sections of the country to cry marginalisation and domination is still growing. Others would even say that federal power had gotten more maddening, to the extent that ensuring that each section to which federal power has rotated would do virtually anything to keep it, even if it includes putting national security at risk. For example, professional keepers of power for specific regions pushed Nigeria into crisis when President UmaruYar’Adua died and until the country was rescued by Doctrine of Necessity. By falling sick like other human beings, President Buhari’s health almost became, if it were not for the man’s integrity, another fertile ground for professional custodians of power for their preferred region. Even President Obasanjo from the Southwest is still being cited as choosing to bend the constitution in the direction of third term, thus overheating an already heated polity.

    Those who wanted to hold federal power in trust for their nationality or region in both the North and South again stretched the cord of unity almost to a breaking point, first over 2011 presidential election and later over 2015 election. The South-south with the support of the Southeast also felt cheated that the power that they believed should belong to that region had been snatched for the Northwest through the election of President Mohammadu Buhari. As tension mounted over resource control or allocation of more revenue to oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta, the country’s leaders resorted to adoption of palliatives: Amnesty Programme for some of the most vociferous militants and establishment of some money-guzzling bureaucracies to pacify the Niger Delta. Such palliatives were considered more profitable for and by those in power at the centre to facing the issue of equitable resource control or share, in the name of even development.

    Disempowerment of states remains a feature of the cosmetic federalism bequeathed by the military at the point of its exit from power through the 1999 Constitution. Even state governors got used to governance as ability to get to Abuja at the right time to collect funds to develop their states. Just like the central government, state governments felt no obligation to citizens who they see as having no stake by way of tax in the political enterprise. Despite the ideas generated by June 12 about the need to return to federalism and productive economy, leaders in central and state governments got used to living off and ruling with funds from petroleum and gas. Many of such leaders looked away from restructuring as they saw it as another threat to access to keep and grow power for themselves at the state level while preparing to move to the centre to become senators or ministers under a system that does not seem to have the right architecture to improve standard of living of citizens.

    Nigeria appears more divided now than ever, except on the eve of the civil war. The reasons should not be hard to find. Trauma of repressed frustration in various parts of the country is coming to the surface and causing tension in various parts of the country. Boko Haram destabilised the country, especially the Northeast for many years. Even after it has been visibly emasculated, it is still killing innocent citizens in its primary region of operation. And it is not just those calling for Biafra that are threatening national security.

    Apart from Boko Haram, farmers and herdsmen who used to live together in harmony before the civil war are now at each other’s throat, to the extent that farmers are abandoning their ancestral homes for fear of being killed by nomadic cattle producers. Militants in the Niger Delta still express open frustration about what they see as lack of equity in the sharing of proceeds from oil that destroys the environment in the Niger Delta. Factions of organisations in search of independence for Biafra are seizing the airwaves and even ordering citizens in the Southeast to boycott normal business with ease. Self-determination groups in the Southwest multiply by the day. The only section of the country that was relatively free of agitation apart from farmers/herdsmen conflict until a few days ago is the core North. This also has become the epicentre of Hate speech and Action in the country.

    After 18 years of celebration of Democracy Day, youth organisations are giving deadlines to Igbos to vacate the 19 states of the North or face extermination. Despite assurances from cultural and political leaders of the North and even the United Nations, there are reports that some Igbo parents have already started to send their wives and children home to Igboland, should the threat of Igbo extermination materialise. Nigeria looks in 2017 as much of a failing state as it did in the mid-1960s and early1990s. And this may not have anything to do with President Buhari. He was elected as a man of impeccable integrity to fight corruption and Boko Haram, and make needed changes. But the presidency of Buhari is bringing back to the fore importance of relationship between good leadership and good structure to good governance in a federal system that most Nigerians perceive this to be.

    A clinical description of tension in the country 24 years after June 12 crisis would show to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear that Nigeria needs fixing. Those who prefer to play the ostrich have the right to do so. But those privileged to anchor June 12 celebration tomorrow must not shy from coming to grips with the challenge of living in a big edifice that houses many families. Some myopic inmates who occupy the biggest room may think that nothing needs to be done to strengthen the structure of the house in the belief that others may take such intervention as an opportunity to reduce their space in the big house. But those who do not want the house to implode have a duty to remember what Chief Awolowo said about seventy years ago: “If a country is bi-lingual or multi-lingual, the constitution must be Federal…. Any experiment with a unitary constitution in a multilingual country must fail, in the long run. I predict that every multi-lingual or multi-national country with a unitary constitution must either eventually have a federal constitution based on the principles which J have enunciated, or disintegrate, or be perennially afflicted with disharmony and instability.”

  • Sotayo gears up for ‘December to Remember’

    Hollywood actress, Tayo Sobola, better known as Sotayo, has announced plans to hold a 5-in-1 grand event tagged ‘December to Remember’.

    An all-white affair, the actress disclosed that ‘December to Remember’ is designed to celebrate her production outfit, Sotee Entertainment’s 1st Anniversary, her birthday which is coming up on December 28, an exhibition of movies she produced in the last one year, the unveiling of her film academy as well as end-of-the-year party for her staff, family and friends.

    Scheduled to hold on December 30, 2016 at the Oriental Hotel, Lekki, Lagos, the actress revealed that the event will be attended by top notch personalities.

    On flagging off of her own film academy, the Bella actress noted that she has always received requests from numerous young people who want to train under her but there had been no time to attend to everyone.

    “So, I discussed this with some of my industry seniors like Antar Laniyan who showed interest and promised to support the project. That was why we decided to put a film academy together. Aside this, I have a charity project I run and I do have lots of blind kids that are very talented that need a platform to showcase their talents,” she said.

  • We will remember karma when it strikes

    Man’s karma travels with him, like his shadow. But karma is nobody’s bitch. The universe’s agent of cause and effect, deterrence and retributive justice, can neither be owned nor placed on a leash. Unlike life, it doesn’t suffer the affliction of mankind’s dubious acquiescence to daunting, menacing bestiality oft attributed to life and summed by the terse, intense statement: ‘Life’s a bitch.”

    Karma is our open secret. In Nigeria, it is our sacred, secret space ignored in plain sight. It becomes our temenos or ritual precinct of reward and comeuppance. In this divine, marked-off terrain, the moral code of the universe operates at its darkest and most mechanical – there are no emotive shingles of pardon or persuasion, just causes and effects, actions and consequences.

    In 1932, the great developmental psychologist Jean Piaget found that by the age of 6, children begin to believe that bad things that happen to them are punishments for bad things they have done. The Nigerian society however, fights futilely to suspend the karmic laws of cause and effect, insulating individuals from the injurious effects of vice and poor judgment. Local gender activists, like their European and American role models, abandon more progressive causes to pervert birth control and abortion in duplicitous bid to detach sex from its natural results or consequences. Politics is equally rigged to reward greed, bestiality, indolence, illegitimacy and so on.

    Lest we forget the pervasive political and economic crisis bedeviling the country. The nation’s woes originate from her moral lapses. Endemic poverty, substandard healthcare and education, ethnic and religious bigotry, bribery and other forms of corruption manifest by the society’s poverty of morals and humane ethics.

    Hence those guilty of corruption escape the consequences of their wrongdoing in connivance with a bland, treacherous government. The karmic consequences of this anomaly are of course, better imagined – think Dasukigate, Mainagate, and so on. Until recently, there was no punishment for the wicked and no deterrence for the corrupt. On President Goodluck Jonathan’s watch, Nigeria was pilfered silly. The country was persistently sodomized and defiled by rampaging hordes of moral perverts. There was no good or evil. The cult of moral grayness bloomed on Jonathan’s watch. Thus our karmic reality of chronic indebtedness and bankruptcy.

    Enter Muhammadu Buhari, incumbent president and leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Buhari suffers the flipside of karma – from his ascension to power and ouster by military coup in the 1980s, to his recent emergence as democratic president, the retired General from Daura is widely appreciated and denounced along bigoted shoals of ethnic and religious extremists. Base sentimentality and impoverished logic fostered by the ruling class and espoused by segments of the citizenry, afflict President Buhari and his bungling cabinet.

    In the presidential cabinet, subtle cues abound, establishing the workings of unforgiving karma.

    We have ministers whose appointments were hotly debated and questioned on basis of their shameful antecedents either as governors, commissioners and other capacities in public and private sectors. One year after their appointment into the presidential cabinet, these ministers can only manage a hobble along the clogged, swampy corridors of the APC’s politics of “Change.”

    In Buhari’s cabinet, we have fabled genii asphyxiating in the stifling grip of intellectual squalor and the grotesque, institutionalised corruption plaguing the country. Nothing works. Contemporary political legend contend that some of the ministers are victims of hubris and karmic forces trailing their emergence through vile, subterranean tactics. President Buhari’s cabinet members in a nutshell, constitute impediments to his success – his personal and administrative inadequacies notwithstanding, if he has a formidable team, his shortcomings as an administrator and leader wouldn’t be so bothersome.

    Lest we forget the country’s Eighth National Assembly and its lack of character. Lawmakers in the country’s upper and lower legislative chambers currently constitute a great, shameful burden to national purse and pride. But groupies of the ruling class would have none of that. Left to them, their cronies and benefactors in the current administration can do no wrong. The absence of a critical electorate thus encourages the ruling class to persist in maladministration.

    In the karmic scheme of things, not only are the corrupt saved from their just desserts, the worthy and true are punished for their uprightness and industry through unjustly burdensome levels of maladministration, taxation and bureaucratic ineptitude. In the ensuing moral sepsis, the current ruling class treats equality as a moral baseline even as it establishes prosperity and poverty as fortunate and unfortunate draws in Nigeria’s cosmic lottery. Thus public office metamorphoses to moral insult and government officials make concerted efforts daily, to subvert the law of karma.

    The most prescient portrait of the Nigerian character and our ultimate fate as a nation however, resonates Hedges’ apt commentary on Herman Melville’s allegorical portrayal about the American character in his literary classic, “Moby Dick.” Melville makes our murderous obsessions, our hubris, violent impulses, moral weakness and inevitable self-destruction visible in his chronicle of a whaling voyage. He is our foremost oracle. He is to us what William Shakespeare was to Elizabethan England or Fyodor Dostoyevsky to czarist Russia, argues Hedges.

    In truth, Nigeria is likable to the fictional ship, the Pequod. The ship’s crew is a mixture of races and creeds which is reflective of Nigeria’s heterogeneous society. The object of the hunt is a massive white whale, Moby Dick, which, in a previous encounter, maimed the ship’s captain, Ahab, by biting off one of his legs. The self-destructive fury of the quest, much like the Nigerian society’s mad dash for wealth, assures the Pequod’s destruction.

    While Ahab and his crew eventually gained awareness of their imminent doom, very few Nigerians appreciate from experience that our prevalent culture of acquisition, fostered by insatiable greed and based on cutthroat politics, corporate profit and limitless devastation of farmlands by oil exploration accelerates doom.

    Nigeria, like the Pequod’s crew, rationalizes madness, scorns prudence and bows slavishly before hedonism and greed. The society yields to the seductive illusion of unbounded luxury, wanton idolatry, limitless power and acclaim. Thus the country unfurls to degenerate forces and systems of death.

    Those who foresee the impending doom lack the fortitude to rebel. Thus moral cowardice makes hostages of all. This shouldn’t encourage Buhari and his ruling class to scorn the subtle nudge of tact. History offers timeless lessons in the fate of Napolean, Hitler, Stalin, Joseph Mobotu (Mobutu Sese Seko), Saddam Hussein to mention a few. These men rose to lead with positive intentions. In time, they did good but later got drunk with power, losing touch with reality, causing misery for many with their own fate sealed in the Karma of their actions. Moby Dick eventually rams and sinks the Pequod. The waves swallow up Ahab and all who followed him, except one.  Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it is dark. We are all karma’s bitches.

  • Remember, Remember the 1st of October

    Atop half-century yore, a wee nation was born.                     In the midst of the West-Coast of Africa’s Horne.                          This nation had riches, from millet to corn,

    With timber and coal, and black gold of its own.

    Its fortune was plenty; its promise was grown,

    Its people were filled with such hope; yet forlorn!

    Even when this wee nation was tired and warn,

    Beauty and grace would always adorn,

    Her face and her lawn, each night and each morn.

    Those who saw her birth took an oath and had sworn,

    To advance her great throne; protect her from the storm.

    Not long from that form, her great fortune was blown,

    When the Nigerian land became one combat zone.

    The Civil War was a thorn. Nigeria’s unity was torn,

    ‘No Victor, No Vanquished,’ yet the nation did mourn.

    But after the conflict, when the Peace-Flag was flown,

    Our country descended to a corruption filled zone.

    We would pilfer, groan, moan; our virtues were shorn.

    We resorted to chaos. Our rise became warn.

    But of all the carnage, what we mustn’t condone,

    Is the divide of religions and ethnicity scorn.

    For what is this nation, where will we be thrown,

    If Nigeria divided and we each went alone?

    At this time, we are 55; “Folks now we must atone!”

    Morn for our wasted fortunes, that we maybe reborn.

    God’s plan for this country, to us, is unknown.

    But He gave us this nation to each call our own.

    Our own is Nigeria… Nigeria’s our home.

     

    _________********_________

     

    Remember, remember, the last day of September.

    It ushers the dawn of the 1st of October.

    Independence Galore for each person, each member,

    Though, Nigeria is still littered with rotten ember.

    Her grange, filled with mange. Her Unity, estrange.

    Her children’s behavior range from, strange to derange.

    In an effort to be better and arrange an exchange,

    Her brethren united and voted for a change.

     

    _________********_________

     

    The resurrection of this country in the right direction,

    Came with the protection of the 2015 election.

    The past interjection, by INEC’s dodgy section,

    And their infection and defection of the Voter’s selection,

    Did cause disaffection and was the height of corruption.

    When a collection of people feel such disconnection,

    With the erection of their leaders, there’s thirst for objection.

    The projection of this year’s election had more complexion,

    With the merger of a Mega-Party in the voting contention.

    The Political Coup was lead by players who had no affection,

    For perfection of Jonathan’s intention to Power-Ascension.

    Also, the security tension caused much apprehension,

    With those lunatic insurgents giving us hypertension.

    Money seemed to be in retention, it denied many a pension.

    And the Diezani’s in the corridors brought an unsavory dimension.

    Knowing the salvation of the nation, lay with vast collaboration,

    The opposition staged an intervention; made a solemn affirmation.

    They gave a declaration, to usher out PDP’s 16 year administration.

    They wanted to meet the expectation of a young generation.

    Thus, with Buhari, Atiku, Tinubu & Rochas’s participation,

    They birthed a behemoth party & gave it their full devotion.

    North, South, West and East, APC continued its extension,

    With one core central mission-:‘To ensure PDP’s ejection!’

    Buhari emerged at the Convention, to lead opposition’s aspiration,

    To start from afresh and wipe out disaffection.

    They told the masses to vote the one with an honest intention.

    GMB’s pairing with Osibanjo was the perfect combination.

    So, for the very first time in our democratic dispensation,

    The opposition was frontrunner in the General Election.

     

    _________********_________

     

    Remember, remember, the last day of September.

    It ushers the dawn of the 1st of October.

    Independence Galore for each person, each member,

    Though Nigeria is still littered with rotten ember.

    Her grange, filled with mange, Her Unity estrange,

    Her children’s behavior range from, strange to derange.

    In an effort to be better and arrange an exchange,

    Her brethren united and voted for a change.

     

    _________********_________

     

     

    APC’s 2015 election victory was the ultimate prize.

    Few thought PDP was willing to say their goodbyes.

    The fear could be felt when Jega was called to arise,

    To announce the results in front of everyone’s eyes.

    The tension was thick; it seemed the Interim Guys,

    Were getting their way, especially when Orubebe cries.

    Nigerians prayed hard for The Almighty’s miracle to rise.

    “Ring…Ring…” went the phone, to The General’s surprise!

    “Congrats Mr President-Elect,” came the concession guise.

    That one call doused the tension and did peace-harmonize.

    In one night, three heroes took to the Nigerian skies;

    Buhari, Jonathan and Jega’s names, will ‘Never’ demise.

    When PMB took control, he started a vast sanitize.

    He took the core of the nation and stripped it down to size.

    He tries to be wise in actions & applies cerebral advice.

    On service, he won’t improvise and he works with few allies.

    Now the panic for appointments has reached quantum in size.

    People scheming and plotting and planting oversize lies.

    Sponsoring their names in papers, in order to sensationalize,

    To remind PMB of their presence incase their memory dies.

    Much Ado about ‘Who’ and ‘What’ #TheList will comprise.

    “Just relax, it’ll be revealed; #TheList wont be in disguise!”

    There is much to do, so much work on which to capitalize.

    On our vast spending culture, Nigeria must economize.

    Corruption is on the verge again of being criminalized.

    As we enter this new phase, we should reflect and revise.

    The next 3 years will be a challenge; people will criticize.

    But the government must keep focused, despite any despise,

    Which Nigerians may decide will be their way to chastise.

     

    _________********_________

     

    Remember, remember, the last day of September.

    It ushers the dawn of the 1st of October.

    Independence Galore for each person, each member,

    Though Nigeria’s still littered, with rotten ember.

    Her grange, filled with mange, Her Unity estrange,

    Her children’s behavior range from, strange to derange.

    In an effort to be better and arrange an exchange,

    Her brethren united and voted for a change!

     

     

    _________********_________

     

    An Independence Ode that comes with a fee;

    The tale of a nation that begged to be free.

    My heavy heart; Oh Verily!

    “…Nigeria, thy still on bended knee?”

    Awo, Zik and Sardauna made a fortress for thee.

    Balewa he stood, as did Macauley.

    To make Ye as brave as Ye can be.

    But thy Babylon-Beasts laid snares for thee,

    And spread their nets with cords of glee.

    There´s a storm in the affairs of man,

    If taken at its stride, it can,

    And lead thee into deepest sea!

    For those of We who weeped for thee,

    And prayed to see thee finally free?

    We pondered on the only key…

    …Rebelled in an effort to set thee free.

    We, protégé, must continue to give to thee,

    In the path of those who doth walk for Ye.

    Some have followed and some doth lead for we,

    To unite this great nation happily.

    For our common good we traverse with glee,

    To turn our diversity into unity.

    Continue lifting our nation for all to see,

    But the task ahead will be very heavy.

    We must forge forth, struggle and win for thee,

    Your unending great quest for liberty.

    “…Nigeria, come off thy bended knee!”

     

    _________********_________

     

    Remember, remember, the last day of September.

    It ushers the dawn of the 1st of October.

    Independence Galore for each person, each member,

    Though Nigeria’s still littered, with rotten ember.

    Her grange, filled with mange, Her Unity estrange,

    Her children’s behavior range from, strange to derange.

    In an effort to be better and arrange an exchange,

    Her brethren united and voted for a change!

     

     

    _________********_________

     

     

    Whatever will happen we must look up to God,

    He giveth and taketh with merely a nod!

    We must increase faith, boost our love and our fear,

    Be sincere and revere and adhere to persevere.

    We must believe in this nation and love it unconditionally.

    Keep our ethos, our culture and our virtues traditionally.

    Nigeria is beautiful, our homeland is glorious;

    She’s known internationally as somewhat notorious.

    Her children are maimed as rather inglorious,

    But in truth for 5 decades she has been laborious.

    And with help from above, she can be meritorious.

    So our nation can rise and, at last, be victorious.

    Motherland, I gift you this “…Word-Rhyming-Flower;

    Signed, sealed and delivered by Hanney Musawa”

    On this fateful day I do wish you all well.

    From the tone of my ode, I hope you can tell.

    My wish for my nation is Goodness-Attendance.

    To every Nigerian… “HAPPY INDEPENDENCE!”

  • Remember June 12

    June 12, 1993 remains a remarkable date in Nigeria. There is no way it can be forsaken by those who maneuvered the notable electoral event of the day. Whether it wanted to be ignored or not by manipulators of realities, what happened then cannot be deleted in history. It stays put as the day of the freest and fairest presidential election when the nation’s citizens pronounced their will which those in power then frustrated in self-interest.

    Election rigging is not strange in Nigerian politics. It has been at hand even before 1960 political independence. The only thing was the continuing increased electoral abuse overtime. Regrettably, Nigerians have recurrently been denied the opportunity to enjoy suitable democracy as supremely replicated through free and fair electoral process. It is not infrequent to hear forged election results been announced in many parts of the country. The thieving of ballot boxes and the manhandling of polling officers and representatives of the opposing political parties are well implanted in Nigeria. But on that June 12 election, beyond earlier postponements and nullifications of earlier candidates, people voted the way they wanted.

    Being truly the freest and fairest in the annals of election in the country, it was to be the beginning of the season for restoration of the nation’s lost political glories.  However, when the authentic results were coming out, the reality became contrary to the tyrannical minds of those who cared less for the political advancement of the nation. Chief MKO Abiola, candidate of the then Social Democratic Party was ahead in comprehensible and clear victory over Alhaji Ibrahim Tofa, candidate of National Republican Congress. On senseless excuse, the emerging result was annulled by former dictator military self-acclaimed President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida.

    There was crisis and calamities across the nation. Even when Bababngida was forced to step down, the follow-ups kept dumping the nation that was ordained to be great to the downgrading valley. Abiola’s insistence on his mandate eventually led to his confinement for several years under the late Gen. Sani Abacha, the nastiest leader Nigeria ever had. His wife, Kudirat fighting for the restoration of her husband’s mandate was gunned down around Lagos tollgate by Abacha military warriors. Many people were also killed while many of value flee out of the country. My humble self was imprisoned for six months just because, as an editor then, I published a story that justly revealed the wickedness and inhumanity of the Abacha regime.

    As things are today, it is as if that same season of Nigeria’s degradation is coming back again. With the postponed general elections drawing closer, politicians are in further desperation. There are lies upon lies by liars without love for the masses.

    The military that wrecked Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s 20-month tenure as military Head of State in 1985 largely because of his battle against corruption are now being mobilized to preserve corruption by working for the nation’s most corrupt government. A look back could also see the military that refused to permit Abiola becoming president despite his victory in the most credible election as the same used in Ekiti State last year to block the right people that were to enter the state and protect political and electoral defaulters desperate to enter and win the election at all costs.

    In reality, the Nigerian security services are now much weaker now than they used to be. Still, they are being used, and being planned to be used to retain more belligerent power than any other group in the nation.

    After five years of deterioration in curtailing the Boko Haram terrorists, it is thorny to envisage that the security situation in the North East will change conclusively in just six weeks. Even with the military working with some neighbouring countries recapturing villages from the insurgents, the large number of the abducted, internally displaced persons and refugees still might not be able to be free to join in voting. But is all the news from the military really true? Afterall, twice had it been proclaimed that terrorist leader Shekau had been killed, whereas the same authority is promising again that the same declared dead will soon be captured alive.

    In wisdom and understanding, we need not forget that privileges alone cannot save anyone. Any authority in political office seeing itself in unending empowerment is in foolhardiness. No matter the desperation, there is a limit to the time the Creator has made for all things to be operational. Nothing of this world can be everlastingly preserved. Indeed, any leader without positive legacy is bound to end in ordinariness.

    In the Scripture, Lot’s wife had many privileges; but she had no grace. She left Sodom with her husband on the day Sodom was destroyed. Against God’s articulated command, walking behind her husband, she looked back at the things of the world in the city. She was smacked dead at once, and turned into a pillar of salt. Her story was held up as a guiding light when Jesus Christ Himself counselled: “Remember Lot’s wife.”

    Today President’s wife is named Patience, but she is living contrary to that name. The way she speaks is not of a diligent First Lady that desiring legacy for her husband. In a recent campaign in Calabar, she asked PDP supporters to stone APC supporters chanting the “change” slogan of the party. In Kogi State, she portrayed Buhari as a man with dead brain, disregarding that an old man can be more experienced in intelligence than a younger naive person.

    In similar senseless mode, PDP presidential campaign media head, Femi Fani-Kayode only speaks Queen’s English without making his brain active when perverting combative allegations to demean the opposition. Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose too has been allowed to remain whom he is:  unruly hoodlum.

    Instead of promoting issues that will benefit the people, why must presidential campaigns be revolting the kind of crisis that razed the nation in the past? Or are we going back to June 12?

    Afenifere: Feedback

    “Soon or late, the day is coming, tyrant’s man shall be overthrown.” -George Orwell, Animal Farm.

    Soji, your treatise on the so-called Afenifere in Yorubaland was a piece of journalistic excellence. To several people in western region, Afenifere died with Pa Adesanya and Ajasin respectively. Those parading themselves as one today are victims of stomach infrastructure who are of no electoral value and who of course can never come out openly to vote on election day. These so-called, self-appointed leaders have lost their souls, credibility and values (if there is any remaining). I have a strong axiom for these rapacious, selfish leaders thus “one thing is certain about all mortals – the judgment of God and that of posterity.” Whether anybody likes it or not, change is looming and inevitable, come March 28.

    – Soji Oloketuyi, Igbemo-Ekiti.

     

    Your piece on Afenifere actually shares my bewilderment on what has become of the old men of Afenifere. They have become an embarrassment to the Yoruba race as they have sadly turned themselves into political Almanjiris just because of their hatred for one man, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. In 2003, due to their cluelessness, the PDP gave them a dazing knockout, snatching all Yoruba states, except Lagos from AD party. They have now started again with the bait of Constitutional Conference report implementation as if it is all about Yorubas. They don’t even consider that Prof. Yemi Osinbajo is their son. History will surely serve them a bitter menu.

    – Femi Abiwon.

     

    Dear Uncle Omotunde sir, they are the Afenifere arm of PDP who just shamelessly want their share of the bloody petro dollars endorsement contract. Asiwaju will expose their electoral worthlessness on 28 March and11 April, 2015! Thank God, we still have  more principled, credible, eminent, incorruptible elder statemen viz Justice Mustapha Akanbi, Pa Sen Ayo Fasanmi, Profs Wole Soyinka, Tam  David West, ABOO Oyediran, Gen Alani Akinrinade, etc. who can still be counted upon at a crucial time like this.

    – Engr Chief Adewumi Ogundare, Ilorin.

     

    Sir, it is now clear that Afenifere had generally spent their good will among the larger Yorubas and what they live on now is deceit and failed past glory. They are down, and rather for them to rise up, ego will not allow them to. Their inability to rise above their ego will make them to go down permanently into their graves in their dirty rag of ego.

    – Falaye Oreoluwa, Abuja

     

    Mr Omotunde, the so-called Afenifere elders are actually a sick and confused lot. They are a spent group who cannot dictate to us Yorubas whom we are to vote for. They are a shameless group of onijekujes.

    – +2348167830707

     

    Groups edorsement of candidates should base on performances not what stomach would eat because tomorrow minces will catch us for our wrong doing.

    -G.C.Nnorom

     

    The old Afeniferes are now known as Alapapin; they don’t represent Yoruba any more.

    – +2348029037867