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Tag: SAS

  • Like Fayose, like Wike, like SAS

    Show me your friends, goes that English saying, and I will tell you the person you are.

    That appears to have played out in the controversial announcement of the no less controversial former Senator Ali Modu Sheriff  aka SAS as new national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    SAS’s coronation, which has sent a segment of the party hopping made, is a coup between the PDP national executive committee (NEC) and its governors.  Former President, Goodluck Jonathan, feckless and unimaginative at the best of times, has reportedly endorsed the move.  He called SAS “the right choice for the opposition”.  Dr. Jonathan’s patent political folly, which led to the PDP crash, appears set to undo any renaissance it may be dreaming of.

    In another section of the house divided against itself is the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT) and former ministerial appointees of Dr. Jonathan.  It appears another set of crisis within the once-upon-a-time self-proclaimed “Africa’s largest party”.

    But even among the governors that pulled the SAS coup, two stand out: Ekiti’s Ayo Fayose and Rivers’ Nyesom Wike.  Link both of them to SAS himself, and you can imagine the ruinous path PDP has chosen.

    Fayose bragged without end how he routed an incumbent in the Ekiti gubernatorial elections of 2014.  But the dirty revelations from Tope Aluko, on how that “win” was cooked, has exposed Fayose as another loud charlatan, professing democratic ethos.

    Wike, in the words of eminent lawyer, Prof. Itse Sagay, SAN, rode on the blood and limbs of the slain to power.  Despite the Supreme Court’s validation of his rotten election, it is clear who is on the moral defensive — the governor or critics of his so-called election.  As it was in the beginning of “militancy” that turned criminality in the Southsouth, armed enforcers, used and dumped by politicians in previous election, became the armed pest to their own people.  That sorry history is about to repeat itself in Wike’s Rivers.

    Link Wike’s probable progression to SAS’s chartered path in infamy, and what you have in your hands is a clincher.  SAS used armed muggers to “win” election in Borno.  But his attempt at use-and-dump led to the Boko Haram crisis, after the first Boko Haram leader, Mohammed Yusuf, was slain in police detention.

    And did you catch SAS’s victory whoop?  “By the grace of Allah, nothing will deter this party from going to Aso Rock in 2019,” he enthused.  “This my long cap is prepared to lead my colleagues and brothers to Aso Rock, Insha Allah.”!

    No qualms about the gridlock PDP’s 16-year misrule has caused.  No thinking about the integrity-deficiency of its many hierarchs, now facing corruption trials.  Absolutely no thought about the legendary incompetence of the last commander-in-chief the PDP inflicted on the country.  And, of course, millions of innocent Nigerians, grand victims of this misrule, absolutely don’t matter.

    What matters is power, power and p-a-w-a!  A deluded party, boasting all-power-no-brain?

    By the way, where does SAS’s ascendancy leave the now loudly quiet Olisa Metuh and his Janjaweed philosophy?  Or is SAS no longer Metuh’s sponsor of Boko Haram?

  • No benefit in Rand intervention, says SA’s reserve Bank

    The South African Reserve Bank has no intention to defend the currency given the muted impact of a falling rand on inflation and the benefits it provides to Africa’s second-largest economy, Governor Lesetja Kganyago said.

    The currency’s decline is a result of the Chinese slowdown and expected monetary policy normalisation in the U.S., Kganyago said September 5 on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting of central bank governors and finance ministers in Turkey’s capital, Ankara.

    “There is no amount of central bank involvement that would do anything to stop a currency from aligning to what the macroeconomic fundamentals are,” Kganyago said. “We have had a shock to our commodity prices and the currency has depreciated. It just provided a cushion to our export sector.”

    The rand tumbled more than eight per cent since the start of August on concern that prices for commodities, which account for more than half of the nation’s exports, will plunge further as China’s economy slows. While the bank has repeatedly cited a weak currency as the biggest risk to consumer prices, Kganyago played down the feed-through impact, citing the decline in oil prices.

    “What we have seen is that with every episode of the rand’s depreciation, the pass-through from the depreciation of the currency into the inflation rate had been muted and had been lower,” he said. The rand’s depreciation “is also accompanied by the decline in the oil price and the decline in the oil price is disinflationary.”

    The currency weakened less than 0.1 percent to 13.8588 per dollar in Johannesburg on Monday, taking its drop since the start of the year to 17 percent.

    The Reserve Bank raised its benchmark repurchase rate by 25 basis points to six percent in July, the first policy move in a year, to help fight inflation that accelerated to five percent in July. Kganyago said on August 11 that the current tightening cycle would be moderate.

     

     

    The oil-price decline “gives a fillip” to the South African economy through lower energy bills as the nation imports about 70 percent of its crude-oil requirements, the governor said.

    The bank may have to cut its economic growth forecast for this year after the economy contracted by an annualized 1.3 percent in the second quarter, he said. The monetary policy committee said in July that the economy will grow 2 percent this year and 2.1 percent in 2016.

  • Tom Ikimi and the politics of deceit

    Tom Ikimi and the politics of deceit

    “Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Science without humanity, Knowledge without character, Politics without principle, Commerce without morality, Worship without sacrifice.” –Mahatma Gandhi

    The All Progressives Congress party today holds the best hope that Nigerians have to send the Jonathan led federal government out of power and usher in a new era of progressive and forward looking government. The APC has in its ranks progressives, pseudo –progressives, a few reactionary elements, conservatives and of course political spies. That is the unfortunate truth. A truth that threatens to undermine its cohesion as some of the reactionary elements who are driven by selfish ambition continue to threaten that the battle line is drawn.

    But first what does progressive mean and who are these reactionary elements within APC?The word progressive has been overused in our political space so much that it has become slightly devalued especially when you look at the caliber of individual going around with the sobriquet of being progressives. But what does it mean to be called a progressive. My online dictionary defines the word Progressive as “favouring or promoting progress”. It also sees the word progressive as “promoting reform in government”. We may therefore say that a progressive  in political terms is that individual or a collective of individuals who seek to make changes from the status quo or people who intend to change the way the business of government is run from a static or negative perspectives to more robust and positive action which will enhance and promote the standard of living of the majority of the citizens within a particular political space.

    Over the years, Nigeria has been really unfortunate to throw up bogus characters who, due to the short attention span (SAS) of most of us, have taken political brigandage to such stratospheric level that even the devil, who is globally acknowledged as the master of disguise, will bow at the insidious ness of such men. Such men have been widely credited with the sobriquet of AGIP, an acronym for any government in power. We have them in large number today and since most of such men can literally do nothing but survive on government patronage, the moment they are out of power, you see them scheming, using any means possible to either remain close, or claw their ways back to the seat of power. They do whatever they wish, knowing they will get away with whatever they can since Nigerian are always quick to forget and if we ever remember, we can always forgive and move on…sad but true.

    Chief Tom Ikimi B.Arch (Hons) FNIA KSG is an Architect and Politician. His later profession as a politician is what he is trying to masquerade as a progressive one. No, Ikimi does not fit the bill. His antecedents are in public domain and his stewardship and thirst for political gain at all costs is common knowledge. It is too late in the day for an Ikimi to expect Nigerians to line up behind him in his fight against persons who Nigerians know how they fought to return Nigeria to democracy. If he has forgotten, millions of Nigerians who suffered and died under military rule will never forget. We still have the newspapers and images of his arrogance on television before the Nigerians and international community defending the brutal hangings of environmental activists, Ken Saro Wiwa and others.

    Tom Ikimi had been active in the Nigerian political space but he rose to prominence when he was appointed the national chairman of the defunct NRC (National Republican Convention) in July 1990 during the ultra-expensive but moribund transition program of the Ibrahim Babangida led military junta. Under his guidance, the NRC won gubernatorial election into sixteen states of the then thirty states of the federation. Ikimi remains on record as one individual who signed away the electoral victory won by Nigerians and sent democracy into the wilderness.

    Sadly after the presidential election was annulled by Babangida and his cohorts, Ikimi, an eternal opportunist, wasted no time joining the Abacha government as a Special Adviser in February 1994. He became Foreign Affairs Minister in March 1995 and retained the portfolio until the Federal Executive Council became dissolved on 8 July 1998.

    It was a classical opportunistic move by the old wily fox. He wasn’t interested in democracy, all Ikimi needed was where his selfish bread could be buttered. Remember there had been lots of complaints about his mismanagement of the NRC. Party funds were reportedly mismanaged; proper book keeping of the party account was non-existent. Tom ran the party with military alacrity as he listens to now one. He was the antithesis of democracy.

    It was no surprised that he became the man that the Abacha Junta leaned on to help launder the pariah image of Nigeria on the internationally, after an election that was adjured to be the freest and fairest in Nigeria history was brutally and insanely annulled.

    As NRC chairman, Tom Ikimi exhibited anti-democratic tendencies. He was dictatorial and ran the party like a personal estate. Ikimi was unstable and rude. You may recall his altercation with the late MKO Abiola during the 1993 presidential debate. He was also allegedly disrespectful of his party members and it was no surprise that he publicly exhibit such traits during a nationally televised presidential debate.

    Tom Ikimi is a friend of military dictators who served Abacha and publicly celebrated and defended the hanging of ken Saro wiwa even when the national and the entire world believed the hanging of the environmental right activists was in bad faith.

    These are some of the antecedent of a man who today claims to be a progressive.

    While the PDP has been a scourge in the lives of Nigerians over 15years and counting, we can’t afford to pretend that anything will do. While I don’t believe that those who will run a political should be saints yet even a sinner should be one who can be trusted. As one who is easily sold out, Tom ikimi is not a man serious people should be associated with. A man who will sell hard fought democracy on the altar of political appointment is not a man to be trusted. We truly need an opposition and by God I believe the APC has come in at the right time, yet we need to have a perspective.

    Tom Ikimi and the likes of Ali Amodu Sheriff are the reason why sane people see the APC as an unserious party. While they are not alone, these two are mostly dangerous because they have been shown to be reckless, unreliable and will go to any length, including less than altruistic ones to get their selfish desires satisfied. The problem of Boko  Haram ravaging the land today, cannot be too far from a man of Modu Sherriff standing. He was the governor when this madness started and if the government of President Jonathan has any balls, Modu Sherriff should be answering questions and helping the security agencies to find solutions to the monsters he created.

    Nigeria needs a viable opposition and in the opposition there will be various individuals, some good, some bad. But even evil should have its own limits. Tom Ikimi and. Modu sheriff have no business strutting their stuff and pretending to be opposition stalwarts.

    If the APC will be taken seriously, then it is time to begin to define the sorts of characters that we can associate with them. No serious athlete eats and grow fat without care even after coming back from an injury, rather a serious athlete watch his weight and work to burn excess fat. Weight shedding is a pre-requisite to be in top form which qualifies an athlete to win a race. For the APC to win in Nigeria, it must shed some unnecessary weight.

    While we are not asking for angels to come and govern us, even the devil we know must have some human face. We may not remember the evil of most past politicians as history is not really our greatest forte, but for the those who claim to wish to serve us, we will put your lives to great scrutiny. The time when any clown will come jostling for power unchallenged is far in the past, today we call on all political gladiators in Nigeria to come to equity with clean hands.

    APC must begin to shed unnecessary weight starting with Tom Ikimi and Modu Sheriff. Let us see you shedding that weight today. APC get cracking NOW!!!

     

  • Sheriff was blast’s target, says aide

    Sheriff was blast’s target, says aide

    The bomb blast that rocked Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, yesterday, was not from the Boko Haram sect but an act of arson targeted at former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff, his aide said last night.

    Chairman, SAS campaign organisation in Borno State, Malam Bako Bunu, said in a statement that the fact that Sheriffs’ property at the old UTC was also targeted was a clear indication that the former governor was the prime target.

    He said the fact that there had been no bomb incident in Maiduguri for the past 11 months until the former governor visited also gives the impression that the sustained opposition against his visit was a calculated move to stop him.

    “It is sad that vehicles bearing Ali Sheriff’s posters were either vandalised or burnt which further points to the fact that Sheriff was the actual target,” Bunu said.

    According to Malam Bunu, the bomb which killed about 19 people was the handiwork of a former chairman of the Maiduguri Metropolitan Council and another highly placed official of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) who has always been suspected to be the brains behind violent activities in Maiduguri.

    “It is an open secret that out of desperation to gain political control of Borno state and out of fear of the growing relevance of Ali Sheriff politically, a group of people has been hiding behind the current insecurity in the state to stop his visit.

    “We are aware that the Boko Haram incident was used as an alibi for some people to perpetrate mayhem and distract the attention of the security operatives,” Bunu noted.

     

  • Osun SAS and the reign of rumours

    Osun SAS and the reign of rumours

    For some time now, the rumour mill in the State of Osun has been unduly astir and agog with its worrisome pastime of tickling the ears of people with fantastic untruths. The emerging pattern appears to be that anytime the government of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola introduces any comprehensive people-oriented policy, those whose pseudo patriotism inspires to harvest defeat from the jaw of victory quickly move to town, spawning a web of lies to discredit the programme.

    Few months ago, some local political irritants and their unconscionable federal sponsors sought in vain to make sense of their hollow claims that the governor had concluded plans to first Islamise the state and then secede using the services of the young men it had trained in Cuba. These accusations fell flat and their sponsors were soon put to shame.

    The latest in this concatenation of ridiculous and reprehensible rumours concerns the activities of the joint security taskforce code-named Swift Action Squad (SAS), recently inaugurated by the state government to combat criminality and make the state unappealing to criminals of whatever pedigree. The objectionable gist in the current rumour making the rounds is that the men of this new security team are fashion police put in place by the government to deal with ladies who dress indecently, and to harass innocent citizens!

    Of course, since the rumour began, not one of the many ladies so punished by men of the SAS for wearing “too sexy clothes” has come to validate the bland claim. Except in the waning and circumscribed imagination of the peddlers of the rumours, nobody has come forward with a shred of evidence to prove a case of harassment or act of impunity against the joint patrol team of security men.

    In the version voyeuristically favoured by one Alabi Sodiq (circulated on some blogs and published in the September 4, edition of Thisday newspaper), it was claimed a young lady was “arrested” by SAS operatives on Saturday August 25, at Iwo. He claimed that the lady “was accused of wearing a top revealing her breast and the soldiers forced her to remove her top so as to totally reveal the breast she was ‘trying to flaunt’. Then, goes the story, a passing innocent Okada rider, who had no idea what was happening, was also stopped and asked by the soldiers to fondle the exposed breast of this young woman. The Okada man tried to turn down this offer and that’s a decision he would be regretting for a long time. He was mercilessly beaten and at the end he had to do as asked”.

    On the surface, it appeared Sodiq was doing the right thing that any public-spirited, law-abiding citizen would do – calling the attention of the authorities to the unlawful actions of a security unit, more so that, in his claim, the information was not fictitious. But in truth, this was blatant disinformation meant to cause needless apprehension in the peaceful people of the state. Except that he saw a young girl running for whatever reason on sighting a patrol vehicle, every other thing in his boondoggle was a product of hearsay. Perhaps because he is alien to the culture of crosschecking the facts of his claims beyond any scintilla of doubt as any credible writer and well meaning citizen would have done, he unquestioningly accepted the hogwash he was told hook, line and sinker as gospel truth!

    For those living in or visiting any part of Osun, it is very clear that all of the red security vehicles used by SAS have bold numbers inscribed on them, both front and back, for easy identification. The easiest thing for anybody who witnessed the wrongdoing of these security men to do is to take down the number and include it in their reports. But in the circulated reports against SAS, not one person – not even the seemingly observant Sodiq– has provided the vehicle number of the particular SAS unit that carried out the rumoured act. There has not even been any simple verbal description of the vehicle. Not one of the different versions of the wicked rumours gave a clear description of the actual place where the incident occurred. I have heard and read different places like Osogbo, Ile-Ife, and Iwo mentioned without any precise location within them identified as the place where passers-by witnessed the event.

    Assuming I were ignorant of what the average Nigerians can do with their camera phones at the scene of a sordid event, I might not have bothered surfing the net for a video or picture from episode. However, since the story was a product of the fevered imagination of rumour-mongers with sinister intentions, no single picture or video clip exists to affirm the veracity of the claims. It was Nigerians, not foreigners, who witnessed the beastly assault some low-minded Naval ratings executed against Uzoma Okereke sometime in 2010, that recorded the shameful acts and uploaded it on the Internet for the world to see. Did camera phones or other similar devices go into extinction while soldiers assault and harass a lady and an okada rider (the imaginative creations of mischief makers)?

    Moreover, I remember that the Special Adviser to the Governor Aregbesola was on live broadcast of the state television station about two weeks ago to encourage witnesses or victims of the untoward acts of SAS to contact him or the TV station with useful information. He gave out his personal number and six other numbers for this purpose. Not a single person has ventured in that direction.

    I have the hunch that those behind these rumours are incorrigible enemies of the state, who are unhappy with the progress being made. It is not even unlikely that these supine and faceless people behind the misleading tales are the ones who are exceedingly uncomfortable with the reality that they may not be able to rig elections because there is a crime-fighting military apparatus on ground. Politically-motivated crimes are stamped out in Osun and the graceless sponsors are in distress, hence the horrible rumours. What is more, in the better-forgotten years of the Oyinlola administration, Osun citizens were at the mercy of criminals. Today, it is a different story with the current administration. With the solid presence of security men in strategic areas around the state, it is very possible that criminals are sorely troubled that the party is over. This too could be another reason for the ruinous claims against the new security outfit the government has put in place to ensure the security of life and property of the people.

    While it is not impossible that some of these security men could be guilty of certain excesses in the performance of their duty, it is also not inconceivable that some weightless politicians and their foot soldiers incapable of deep introspection would resort to cheap lies and rumours in order to destroy a scheme that serves the people of the state very well.

    In his address at the inauguration of SAS, Aregbesola did not mention fashion policing as part of the duties of this security scheme. What will make sense is for people to report any unseemly conduct by members of the squad, with verifiable evidence. It is another way we can all participate in the onerous task of ensuring the security of the people of our various communities. Let all mischief makers, rumour-mongers, and political irritants know that no edifice of lies can survive where the sledgehammer of truth is active.

    • Alowonle writes from Osogbo