The Nation Newspaper

Tag: time

  • A time for reflection

    A time for reflection

    Delta, Rivers, Cross River and Akwa Ibom are four Southsouth states with new governors. The governors of Edo and Bayelsa are not new. Adams Oshiomhole is serving his second term in Edo State, while Seriake Dickson is warming up for a second term in Bayelsa State.

    With almost all the governors in this region new, I sincerely believe it is a time to let their Excellency knows that poverty walks on all fours in this region. What better way can I do this other than go back to a piece on this space last September 26?

    The piece titled ‘The common Niger Deltan’ is a food for thought. Here it is:

    I write this for no one in particular. It is just the thoughts of a man who needs to speak out before becoming a patient at a psychiatric hospital. Let me do a brief introduction: I am what many will prefer to address as the common man. But, since I fall into the geographic divide called the Niger Delta, I opt for the option of being addressed as the common Niger Deltan. What sets me apart from the other Niger Deltans? It is simple. I am poor, stinking and not sure of where the next meal will come from. I live in the creeks. My house, made of wood, is covered with palm front, which I have to change from time to time as they wither away.

    For me, luxury is a stranger. It is something I hear about and see when the rich choose to throw their weight about. Some of my children could not go to school. I don’t have to tell you the reason. It is obvious. Did I hear anyone talk about free education? It is a mirage to me and a source of pain too.

    But, do I really have any reason to be poor? I don’t think so. I was born into wealth. Not that my father was rich. My mother was a good friend to poverty. What I mean by being born to wealth centres around the fact that I am from the Niger Delta, where the oil of Nigeria’s prosperity is drilled. A constant reminder of this is some minutes away from my abode: the Residential Area or RA, as we are wont to call it, of the multinational the government gave the licence to drill our oil on its behalf. My house and those of others around me when compared with the RA cannot be described better than saying “heaven and hell, side by side”. Ours is hell; theirs is heaven.  I guess we have sinned and come short of the glory of God to be consigned to that sort of existence.

    On a second thought, I think it is not God that we have sinned against. It is our leaders, the men we elect to lead us. Or, better still, the men who forced themselves on us as our leaders. In my part of the Niger Delta, we never see night. I will explain. The multinational operating in our area has its flow station so close to our homes. It sends out gas flares throughout the day. So, the only way to differentiate between night and day is to check our wrist watch, something that is a luxury to many of us. In my town, oil pipelines are not underground. They are in the open. And often they burst or are burst and our soils and existence are damaged in the process.

    We have shouted, protested and threatened violence over our fate, yet change has refused to come. It is as if the multinational also has another licence: to send us all to our early grave so that our leaders can have all the wealth for themselves, including the little they manage to spend on basic amenities for us. This environmental genocide, as some have called it, is having serious effects on us. Strange diseases are killing our people. Pregnant women are developing strange allergies. Yet, we have only one ill-equipped health centre to take care of our health needs. We have several people with aggravated asthma, increases in respiratory symptoms, such as coughing and difficult or painful breathing, chronic bronchitis and decreased lung function. Premature death is not uncommon.

    What further baffles me is that this multinational goes about painting a picture of being an asset to us, when it is, indeed, a curse. Every Christmas, the company sends us cows, two cows to be specific, for this big town to share. You need to come and see the fighting this usually causes. Poverty is not good. We end up fighting over something we are supposed to reject and throw back at the bearer.

    I heard the other day that the company says it is all out to ensure no harm comes to us as a result of its activities here. Yet, as I write this, my brain is being flared out by the gas flares from its flow station, which is at the centre of our town. The truth is, they are more interested in the oil than in our well-being. We can die for all they care. Oil is more important than man; that is their mantra. Our government is an accomplice in this man’s inhumanity to man. Once the royalty keeps coming in, to hell with the people. Meanwhile, they will tell us “Power to the people”. Soon, they will come around distributing rice, George and wrapper and all kinds to buy our conscience and votes. Willingly, we will sell. No thanks to poverty.

    It is lost on our government that the richest nations in the world are agro-based. The country used to make so much money from cocoa, groundnut and other cash crops. But, oil has made us mad. We have lost our sense of reasoning. We just don’t give a damn about its down side. The madness has eaten into the youths who are now looking for easy money. That is why they see militancy, kidnapping, illegal bunkering and armed robbery as better than tilling the few good soil left. I agree with the school of thought which argues that our leaders brought about the laziness among the young ones. Someone needs to show them leadership and direction.

    Our leaders must try some radical approach to increase revenue. Agriculture will help. Rice farms will do a lot of magic. We are known as fishermen, but we are not doing it well. If we do it well, we will make lots of cash locally and foreign exchange will also increase tremendously. In many of our communities, crops, such as plantain and banana, just sprout out on their own. We don’t have to plant them. I read somewhere in one of those scarce moments when I come across newspapers that plantain can be imported too. This is something that just grows on its own on our soil. We need to think.  We must harness this potential for the betterment of the state.

    The other time our past governor acquired fishing trolleys. We were happy they would help us get more from our fishes. As I write, these trolleys are abandoned at a waterside, another evidence of how we waste our limited resources. It is a tale of ‘Papa Deceiving Pikin’. We are just one big nation of liars. Leaders lie. Journalists bend the fact. Oil companies twist the facts. It is just a big game of deceit. But, we must not continue like this lest we perish.

    This is where I rest my case hoping somebody will rescue me from the huge oven the flare from the oil giant’s flow station has turned my home. Or, may be my last hope lies in my son, the only one I managed to send to the university but ended up a militant when there was no job. Through the Amnesty Programme, he was trained as a pilot. If he gets a job, may be my sorrow will be over and I will leave this oven I call home and start life afresh. But, like many who benefitted from the Amnesty Programme trainings, he is still jobless and living off his monthly stipend, a percentage of which goes to his former militant camp leader.

    What else is there to say other than that the Niger Delta narrative must change. The common Niger Deltan deserves to tell a better tale, not a warped one like this. And with a Ben Ayade, a young professor in Cross River, and other new ones in the region, things should improve  in the next few years.

  • Fayose: it’s time for governance

    Fayose: it’s time for governance

    Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose has said he will now concentrate on giving good governance to the people.

    Fayose said he would not persecute the former All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers for their attempts to impeach him but would leave them to God.

    He spoke yesterday at a thanksgiving service to mark his victory and the inauguration of the Fifth House of Assembly at the Deeper Life Bible Church Campground, Ajebamidele, Ado Ekiti, the state capital.

    The service was attended by newly-elected members of the National Assembly and House of Assembly, traditional rulers, political office holders, senior civil servants and politicians.

    Fayose said the victory achieved is dedicated to the people, who gave him unflinching support during the uncertainty that rocked the state.

    He said: “This victory is dedicated to God and the good people of Ekiti State who stood by me during the trying period.

    “I am not here to tell you that the battle is over. I have won the battle and all the traps sets for me.

    “At a point the battle seems too much for me and I was confused but the inspirations of God keeps telling me that this battle will not consume me, there was no longer saliva in my mouth again.

    “The impeachment crisis looks like The nation of Israel, a nation amidst enemies.  The nation of Israel has not lost any battle but the nation of Israel is Ayo Fayose.  And he has not lost any battle.”

    The wife of the governor, Feyisetan, said she had a premonition of the political crises that rocked the state.

    Mrs Fayose, who was giving a testimony, recalled that God revealed to her in a dream that the state would pass through  a turbulent period in  March and April but with an assurance that He would not abandon them.

    She said “In the dream, God told me that March and April will be stubborn. He said we should get prepared for it. But God promised to see us through and he did.”

    Fayose thanked all those who supported him. The service also included prayers for the out-gone lawmakers and the new lawmakers, traditional rulers, the government, governor, deputy governor and the people.

  • Time for new national paradigm 

    Since the March 28 and April 14 General Elections, our nation has recorded about 23 trekkers and bikers, the young and the old alike, traversing the nation, doing unimaginable distances with glee, some in support of Buhari, some Goodluck Jonathan for his presumed love for peace, ditto the concession of defeat at the polls. In all of this, the score is manifest; democracy is the winner and Nigeria the victor. By this Nigerians have said in no uncertain terms that we want to remain together and make our fatherland great.

    The profound euphoria that inundates the public space makes the template for a better Nigeria less tenuous; it leaves our nation with great faith in the oneness or so of our people. The truth is that we have more reasons to stay united than the scores that disunite us. We have shown an unrivalled bond for national affinity and consanguinity than we have of our differences. Yes we can make the best of this halcyon moment; we can like the Phoenix recreate Nigeria.

    A new national orientation paradigm must seek inclusivity and genuine brotherhood predicated on no less a margin than the development of the human capital, excellence must be the watch word. We must cease to permit and pardon mediocrity on the altar of the federal character normative. We must begin a rework of our morals and mores such that all Nigerians will embrace patriotic proclivities and enable a progressive redefinition of citizenship. We must sediment values that confer pride in this collective constituency knowing that we have got no other but Nigeria.

    The zoning and power-sharing normative are only stop-gap measures, they are values that appear conciliatory and inclusive but in actuality they divide us and deepen our differences. The defeat of the PDP at the last general polls and the fact that for the first time since the Nigerian Civil War, we saw an ethnically divided and polarised polity is a lucid manifestation of the failure of the zoning, power-sharing cum Federal Character ordinance and normative. It is a copious minus for debaters who insist on zoning and power sharing as the path to effective national integration.

    Thankfully with a change driven regime, I’m confident that we shall begin the excavation of the needed pebbles that must unite us as one great people. I’m convinced that when we make the development of the human capital the major thrust of governance every other thing will follow. With sound education and technological growth comes the realisation of a universe without bounds, and by Jove a nation with fewer dichotomies, bias and variegation, and such is the minimum template.

    When we begin to see Nigeria as our major collective; when we begin a collective overhaul of our morality in and out of power; when service to nation becomes the narrowest permissible margin for leadership; when East, West, North and South or if you like our six geo-political zones make dedicated service to the people the governmental minimum; when making real the promises of democracy becomes the summum bonum; when creed and clan regresses to personal loyalties rather national mantra; and when change deals with all Nigerians as equals, then the profound voyage to our Isles of Good Hope shall have commenced.

    As a people we have reached that turn in history where quick-fixes and stop-gap measures at enhancing national cohesion must be jettisoned. We cannot afford the luxury of un-researched response to serious national questions. The greatest threat to our nationhood is not in our differences but in the politics thereto, it is in corruption and in the corruptive demolition of our values, it is in the egocentric invocation of ethnic prejudices, it is in the devaluation of the allowable leadership minimum, and it is in the deficiency of organisational quid pro quo such that mediocrity and compromise have become the benchmark for a successful climb on the ladder of power.

    We must begin a rework of the values on which we predicate our National Honours. We must remove our National Honours from the platform of political freebies. We must deepen the measure of value and price the Green-White-Green as our grandest prize. We must not only insist on political appointments that adhere to the ‘round peg in a round hole or square peg in a square hole’ normative but on appointees whose love and passion for nation is manifest and profound.

    The urgency of the now is hinged on the vote for change which the Nigerian people made when a new order was thumb-printed into time, we cannot overlook or undermine this reality, Nigerians are congregated at the mount of great hope where it will no longer be business as usual, anything short of this will fuel a national angst that may just fritter away the pervasive goodwill that the GMB magic enjoys. The leaders of the APC may well take heed of this profound urgency; we must hit the ground running and rightly so.

    I have chosen faith over despair; I have elected change over business as usual; I have studied the Nigerian resilience and the Nigerian brotherhood; I have more than enough reason to conclude that it may not yet be Uhuru, but we are getting there.  It was said that incumbents scarcely lose elections in Africa but Goodluck Jonathan lost. It was said that only a moneybag can win a Presidential election in Nigeria but GMB isn’t a moneybag. In all of this none of the chief gladiators is the winner or the loser, Nigeria is definitely the winner, so I cannot be more hopeful.

    We must take the National Orientation Agency and its message to the streets; we must encourage the emergence of national corps and volunteers to whom our national flag and memorabilia will count hugely. We must raise our National Anthem and the pledge to the status of our national prayer such that the Christian, and or the Muslim opening and closing prayer normative will cease to occupy our socio-political stage; creed should be treated as personal and denied its national vehemence, that way we can diminish all political allegiance to faith, and that way our politico-social allegiance will be to country first.

    Countrymen and women, we cannot continue to trade blames, we cannot overlook the fact that every region has its share of guilt in the national drift. We cannot excuse the collateral damage that un-studied policies and un-researched cum emotive programmatic has brought Nigeria, what Nigeria needs is responsible and responsive leadership not ethnic jingoists and religious fundamentalists. What Nigeria needs are good men who must redefine our values and deepen our morals.  What Nigeria needs are leaders who will kill corruption and give life to committed service to fatherland. And what Nigeria needs is a new regime of rectitude and patriotism.

    ‘What Nigeria needs are leaders who will kill corruption and give life to committed service to fatherland. And what Nigeria needs is a new regime of rectitude and patriotism’

     

    • Prof. Nwaokobia Jnr writes from Lagos.

  • Time to rejig NANS

    All around the world, universities are established to push forward the frontiers of knowledge, transform people’s lives and contribute to the health and wealth of nations through their deep involvement in result oriented researches which is expected to have impact in the wider society and the economy.”

    This was my opening paragraph in a three part series I wrote on the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) last year titled: “Is all well with the house of NANS?” I made mention in the articles the leadership crises the student body was facing where three individuals all claim they were “president” of NANS. That was the situation until the present executive led by Tijani Usman took over earlier this year.

    It is saddening that undergraduates could not provide a coherent voice in the run up to the just concluded 2015 elections. Other than the gale of suspicious and spurious endorsements of some candidates, the “students” could not even produce a position paper to their preferred candidates on what they desire for the education sector should the candidates win. Just like the society they live in, our students were mainly concerned with the candidates that can haul in the largest amount of cash. This cash for endorsement strategy further factionalised an already distressed association.

    Nigeria has in the past seen the best in student unionism. For those old enough to remember the military era, they will recollect the part the National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS), the precursor of NANS, and later NANS itself, played in giving the military sleepless nights. How can one forget the late Segun Okeowo, Chris Abashi, Akintunde Ojo, Chima Ubani, Chris Mammah and a host of others?

    Then student unionism was ideologically driven with detailed and intelligent analysis of the state of the nation, regular communique that are deep with insight and knowledge are released, not the shallow statements that we see from the stable of representatives of Nigerian students these days.

    Student unionism in Nigeria has a cherished and glorious history that is worth reenacting here. The emergence of West African Student Union (WASU) pioneered by some Nigerian students in London in 1925 opened the floodgate of student unionism in the country. WASU fought the colonial masters for the rights of Africans.

    This was followed by the National Union of Nigerian Students, (NUNS) whose last leader was the late Segun Okeowo. The NUNS was proscribed by the regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo. But with the advent of democratic rule, Nigerian students converged at the Yaba College of Technology, Lagos to establish NANS. NANS inherited the same idealism from WASU and NUNS and the student union matched on as a platform of change and of informed activism. Has that same cherished tradition continued to date? We’ll find out.

    The last NANS leadership led by Yinka Gbadebo is perhaps the most controversial in its history. At its 26th convention held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, students elected Gbadebo of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife as the president. However, one notable feature which has been the norm in past conventions since student unionism started was left out; the students did not discuss the state of the nation.

    I recollect reading a report then where one disappointed delegate described the failure to discuss current issues as “evidence of the level of degeneration in NANS.” He added that the organization used to be at the forefront of the struggle for the liberation of Nigeria’s downtrodden and oppressed classes. This, no doubt, was one informed delegate.

    I can still vividly recall how NANS served as an active resistance group during the era of military regimes in Nigeria. It was part of the movement that fought for a return to civil rule in the country. By 1990, NANS was at the peak of its glory, having played a significant role in rousing Nigerians to protest the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) imposed by the Ibrahim Babangida regime at the urging of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

    The year also marked the beginning of what would be a split within the organisation later. NANS annual convention had been fixed for November 30, 1990 at Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi Edo State, but because of disagreements it was moved to the University of Benin (UNIBEN).

    After the controversial and heated convention, NANS – for the first time – witnessed a split along ethno-religious lines when a former undergraduate from Usman Dan Fodio University, Sokoto (UDU), announced a “Northern NANS.” This almost tore the union apart, but the students eventually came together after finding a common ground of agreement.

    However, that split fostered deeper ideological conflicts and schisms between different interest groups and weakened the broad platform of the body which unfortunately has continued to date. This compelled another delegate month later to allege that: “Student unionism has been infiltrated by dirty money politics as well as brigandage by members of some confraternities and cult groups.”

    But some activists from the past strike more sympathetic notes as they see the new developments as not simply evidence of student leaders’ “degeneration,” but as a symptom of broader problems in the larger society. They point to the 2005 case when the then NANS president Orkuma Hembe used the platform to campaign for Obasanjo’s third term gambit and even went further to award him “Defender of Democracy” award.

    This was against the backdrop of a groundswell of opposition that this same defender of democracy proscribed NUNS, expelled and rusticated several of its leaders from their various university campuses across the country.

    To try to understand the situation in NANS is to also understand that the larger societal malaise is also affecting the association. If you think the principle of zoning of political offices is a creation of the Federal Character Commission or the PDP, then you have another think coming. There is zoning provision in the constitution of NANS as well. Last year, this does not permit anybody other than a Student of an institution of higher learning in the South-West to contest the presidency.

    It was widely alleged by students that he last leadership of Yinka Gbadebo capitalised on the larger societal ills for pecuniary gains. Inibehe Effiong, a former Law student of UNIUYO castigated the leadership for not “taking a responsible and pro-student stance” to end the almost one year ASUU strike. He also accused him of “taking over the propaganda machinery of a government that does not appreciate the sanctity of agreements from Doyin Okupe, Reuben Abati, Labaran Maku and Reno Omokri… The order day, he travelled to Onitsha in Anambra State to endorse the candidature of Mr. Ifeanyi Ubah for the forthcoming gubernatorial election in Anambra State.”

    So has things changed with a new leadership? It will be difficult to say at this point because the Tijani Usman leadership also caught the endorsement bug during the last election when he endorsed the out-going president. As expected from a factionalised body, other zones, especially the south west zone released a statement dissociating itself from the endorsement.

    However, the body has found its fangs again and has started commenting on national issues. Last week, it says it will not support the removal of fuel subsidy either by the outgoing or incoming administrations. It also says it has resolved not to sit aloof anymore when critical issues of state are being worked out, adding that it has over the years been at the receiving end of programmes and policies of government whether good or bad.

    These are positive steps, but what impact they would make is left for time to tell. While this is going on, the body needs soul searching and articulation of thoughts and ideas, especially those that immediately affect the education sector. This should be one of the areas its leadership should hone into.

    For a student body in the 21st century it is appalling that its website and twitter handle are all dormant- in fact, it has been dormant for more than two years now. It is shameful that while the leadership was busy endorsing politicians it could not activate a common website! So what have all the undergraduates of computer science been doing?

    The rebranding and repositioning of the NANS should start from here; but this can only be carried out by a purposeful leadership.

     

     

  • Buhari, Ezekwesili, Chimamanda on Time’s influential list

    Buhari, Ezekwesili, Chimamanda on Time’s influential list

    Nigeria’s President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili and bestselling author, Chimamanda Adichie are on the TIME magazine’s world’s 100 most influential peoples list.

    Excerpts from their profile on TIME’s website:

    Muhammadu Buhari  – A new choice for Nigeria (by Aryn Baker)

    Muhammadu Buhari made history in March by becoming the first candidate to oust a sitting Nigerian President through the ballot box. Now he has to live up to voters’ expectations.

    From battling the Boko Haram insurgency to tackling endemic corruption, Buhari has many challenges ahead. The greatest may be overcoming his past as a military ruler who seized power in 1983. Already the born-again democrat is demonstrating the inclusivity necessary to lead a nation driven by ethnic and religious tensions.

    “We must begin to heal the wounds and work toward a better future,” he said in his April 1 victory speech. “We do this first by extending a hand of friendship and conciliation across the political divide.” It’s a promising start for a President-to-be who wants to leave a legacy to match the historic conditions of his election.

    Oby Ezekwesili (by Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe)

    Like northern Uganda, where I live, northern Nigeria is very isolated. For many years, the women who were abducted from our region remained invisible.

    So although I have not met Obiageli Ezekwesili, I know the #BringBackOurGirls campaign that she championed is very important. It would have taken a long time to raise awareness about the girls taken by Boko Haram without her using her platform as a former Minister of Education.

    We need to remember that these girls are undergoing psychological and maybe physical torture. So I love that the campaign says, “Bring back our girls,” and not “Bring back my child.” Everybody is in unison with the parents and the relatives. Everyone is feeling their pain. Everyone will be ready to embrace the girls and offer them care and compassion if they are rescued or manage to escape.

    It has been a year, and the girls haven’t been rescued, but she has made a difference by speaking about it. Not just speaking but shouting. I know some people will say she is too loudmouthed. The loud mouth is needed. People hear it.

    Chimamanda Adichie  – Conjurer of character (by Radhika Jones)

    It’s the rare novelist who in the space of a year finds her words sampled by Beyoncé, optioned by Lupita Nyong’o and honored with the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. But the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is just that sort of novelist.

    A MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, Adichie writes of the complex aftermath of Nigeria’s colonial history and her nation’s rise to prominence in an era when immigration to the West no longer means a one-way ticket. With her viral TEDxEuston talk, “We Should All Be Feminists,” she found her voice as cultural critic. (You can hear it rising midway through Beyoncé’s woman-power anthem “Flawless.”)

    She sets her love stories amid civil war (Half of a Yellow Sun) and against a backdrop of racism and migration (Americanah). But her greatest power is as a creator of characters who struggle profoundly to understand their place in the world.

     

     

  • Time for Nigeria to be great once again

    Dear Compatriots, I want to take this last opportunity, before we go to the polls on Saturday March 28 and April 11 respectively, to thank everyone who has supported our campaigns. I am humbled and grateful to have had the opportunity to meet so many of my fellow Nigerians who have helped to carry the message of change across our great country.

    This is the fourth time that I would be standing for election as the President of Nigeria. All these years, I have been driven by a keen awareness of the potential greatness of our country and the desire to provide the true leadership that will unleash this huge potential.  I believe that a stable and prosperous Nigeria is not only important to Nigerians. It is also important to Africa and the rest of the world. The evidence of this is the unprecedented attention that our country will receive this weekend. On Saturday, the whole world would wait with baited breath for the greatest black nation on earth to take charge of its destiny. We must therefore not miss the significance of this moment. We must not let ourselves and our country down.

    At no other time in our history is Nigeria in such an urgent need of strong and competent leadership. Sadly, at no other time is this leadership so sorely absent in our country. We live in a time of great opportunities and great peril. It is only a leader that understands these in equal measure that can find the rightful place for Nigeria among the great Nations of the world.

    I have travelled extensively around Nigeria in the last three months. In the course of my travels, I encountered directly, what I have always believed: that a Hausa man’s desire for security is not different from the Ijaw woman’s desire to feel secured in any part of our country. An Igbo woman’s desire for her children to get quality education and find employment is not different from the Yoruba man’s dream for his children to become a useful member of our society. A wife’s desperate need for affordable and quality healthcare for her husband diagnosed with prostate cancer in Enugu is not different from a husband’s desire to save the life of his wife diagnosed with ovarian cancer in Lagos. Invariably, our fears are the same; our dreams are the same; and our problems are the same. Regardless of the language we speak, or the way we understand and worship God, what affects anyone of us, affects everyone of us.

    Our economy is celebrated as the largest in Africa, yet our country is home to the continent’s highest number of people living in extreme poverty. Our youth population is larger than the combined population of many of our neighbours, yet our failure to plan and create opportunities for them is turning them to a social time bomb rather than economic catalysts. A band of ragtag terrorist group has threatened our territorial integrity, killed thousands of Nigerians, displaced our people and abducted our children. The almost 60, 000 Nigerians who have become refugees in neighbouring countries represent a budding threat to sub-regional stability.

    However, even in the face of these daunting challenges, I see a great opportunity for change.  We have to start by rebuilding the trust and confidence of Nigerians in their government. No citizen will respect a government under whose watch more than 200 girls were abducted. This singular act can only portray the government as insensitive, incompetent or both. When I become president, reuniting these children with their families will, without doubts, be a top priority. Rebuilding the army and other security agencies will also be a top priority of my government.  I will ensure that never again will terrorists find a safe haven in Nigeria.

    Recent fall in international price of crude leaves us badly exposed and vulnerable. Dwindling oil revenue also means that we are going to face serious financial challenges in the months ahead. However, even as daunting as this appears, it also provides us with great opportunity to diversify our economy and finally give meaning to the widely held belief that our prosperity as a nation would not continue to depend on the resources buried under our feet, but on the productive capacity of our people.

    No matter how many resources we have, if not properly utilized, it would only create a few billionaires and leave majority of our people in poverty. Under the current administration, corruption has enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and this has been at the heart of most of our government failings, including insecurity, broken infrastructure and growing inequality in our country.

    My government will have a zero tolerance for corruption. I will set a personal example and run a government that truly serves the people rather than serve themselves and a privileged few. Like I have repeatedly maintained that if Nigeria does not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria. We must not allow Nigeria to die. Therefore, we must do all that is necessary to root out this evil that has reduced our great country to a laughing stock of the world. We must begin to rebuild the social fabrics of our society and teach a different experience to our youth in the values of hard work, discipline, integrity and service.

    The change that I seek therefore; is a change from the current regime of mindless of corruption and profligacy; a change from fear and insecurity to peace and stability; a change from religious and ethnic divisiveness to unity, equity and justice. This is the change that my party stands for. This is the change that I am committed to bringing about as President.  Give me the chance to lead you in rebuilding a Nigeria that all of us can be proud of once again.

    As we come out to vote on Saturday, I appeal to all Nigerians to shun violence in whatever form.  It is the right of every adult Nigerian to vote and expect that their votes would count in a free, fair and credible election. However, we also have a responsibility to respect the choice of others and grant them the same treatment that we expect.

    I also want to call on all our men and women in uniform, the Judiciary, and all others who have constitutional responsibility to safeguard our democracy, to remember that their responsibility is primarily to Nigerians and the survival of Nigeria. They must therefore not allow anyone to use them to subvert the will of the Nigerian people. I believe that their dreams and aspirations are not different from those of other Nigerians.

    I have no doubt that with God being on our side; together we can make our country great once again.

    • Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR is Nigeria’s President-elect delivered this speech before the March 28th, 2015 Presidential election.
  • Tenants in power, time is running out

    Tenants in power, time is running out

    “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” _¯ Mahatma Gandhi

    The much-awaited year 2015 is just unfurling with the month of March, the third in the year, nearly getting to its middle. Among individuals, especially the occupants of exalted positions in the corridors of power, the way last year ends might vary but we can only hope and pray for the best in 2015. As private persons or as public personalities, how far have we gone in meeting set goals; for self and society? Those in power and who are about to contest the coming elections should not become victims of excuses, even though there is never enough time to do all we set out to achieve; we should strive to be nothing but conqueror of objectives: And by objectives, this column mean those deeds that could stand the test of time and benefit humanity.

    Time is of essence in life. It is what keeps everything from happening at once. Every living being has own time or better put-magic moment. As the March/April elections are approaching, individuals in power have their time in their hands; how best have they deployed it. Is it used for egocentric purposes or for more enduring ventures? Whether you are president, governor, minister, commissioner, local government chairman or directing mind in an organisation among other powerful positions, by the turn of May, 2015, your days in office would come to an end, except for re-elected first term politicians in office. The crowd of people you see around you today would not be there forever. They throng around your position, not your person. When another person occupies the seat tomorrow, you automatically become history and what you live on subsequently is your good deeds-or better put legacy. Have you, despite your present position, ever given this inescapable looming reality any deep thought in the midst of privileged reverence that you are daily accorded by virtue of your position?  Let us all remember in whatever grandeur it might currently please God to place us as another tenure beckons that there comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is our own hearts- the ultimate judge of human conducts. The earlier we learn the sound of our hearts, the better so that we can correctly decipher what it is saying and follow it. The problem with powerful men is that they have avoidably failed to be loyal to their conscience and have failed to discern inevitable change and challenge when about to occur. The saddest words that could ever come out of the mouths of once-upon-powerful-fellows are: ‘It might have been.’ As these elections get closer, you still have the power to shape you today and the future. Whatever part you deliberately chose, whether of self-perdition or sentence to irreverent oblivion should not be subsequently called mistakes?

    Remember, as the elections are about to commence that there have been tyrants and slayers, and for some time, they can seem insuperable, but in the end, they always fall. Remember that it is your actions, not the fruits of your actions that would count against or for you on judgement day, which is why you must endeavour to always do what is importantly right. Let your action not be informed by personal gains or malice because that may not be in your power to decide. God in His infinite mercy might decide to let your actions or inactions benefit humanity and not even you can stop that? But you would be remembered, long after you have gone as the harbinger of that good action, and would be duly celebrated one day. But that doesn’t mean you should stop doing the right thing because there may not be immediate personal gains. You may never know what results come from your actions. But if you do nothing, there will be no result to celebrate in the world.

    As elections are about to unravel, remember that yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream. What dreams do you have as a leader- for the country as her directing mind and the world at large so that there can be a peaceful global village for all to co-habit? Do not be deceived by the false friends or deterred by true enemies that success usually attract. Just make sure you put in your best in all you do in whatever position you might presently be privileged to occupy.

    Having gone this far, it is pertinent to remind our privileged men of power on the need to engage in pertinent self re-examination. The president, governors and other political appointees by now would be buying time in power. The president and most of the governors would have become lame duck in their positions since fresh elections have been rescheduled for March/April, 2015 by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Political parties have nominated candidates that would stand for elections into these exalted positions and the likely candidates that would take-over power would be seeking the hands of the people. That has been the tradition of CHANGE of baton in the political firmament. But those that did well by the end of March/April would be filled with certain sense of fulfilment.

    How would our current crop of elected and appointed public officers want to be remembered? What future have they built for their families through their handiwork while in government? Is it one that will invite opprobrium or acclaim from members of the public? Is it not probably too late for them to remedy their avoidable pitfalls of the past now that the elections are just weeks away? And for Nigerians: Are they ready to tolerate the misfits in government that continue to rigmarole them with bad governance? Are Nigerians going to over look any failure whatsoever from the presidency, from governors and even INEC in the imminent 2015 general elections?

    We should continue to fervently pray for God’s special grace in Nigeria so that the coming 2015 general elections would not be the last to be held under this dispensation because of insinuations of violence/rigging that rents the air. This column believes in such prayers and would continue to do everything to seek divine protection and blessings for the country. But above all, the ruling class must stop its destructive do-or-die politics with which our polity has been replete with in the about 16 years of democratic rule. In conclusion, this column is in prayerfully mood for a peaceful country post May, 2015. Let us all do things in this political season with moderation and more importantly, love our neighbour as we love ourselves. We must respect and allow the people’s votes to count in the coming general elections.

  • The fire this time

    •The Ebonyi crisis and impeachment frenzy should not be allowed to burn down the state

    Ebonyi State is on the verge of crisis, unless the political actors apply the brake. To stop the descent into anarchy, we urge the security agencies to rein in those responsible for the recent fire incident in the state House of Assembly, believed to be arson. The selective pattern of the fire incident lends credence to the fear that the political actors may now be resorting to impunity, just to have their way at all costs. The contending forces for political supremacy in the state are led by Governor Martin Elechi and former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim, respectively.

    According to reports, the biggest prize at stake is the state governorship, which has pitted Governor Elechi who is allegedly sponsoring a candidate under the Labour Party (LP), against Senator Anyim, who is allegedly sponsoring the deputy governor, on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). For the governor’s camp, the Abuja power brokers, led by Senator Anyim, allegedly orchestrated the rigging of the party primaries in favour of the deputy governor. According to them, it was in protest that the governor’s group moved their candidates to the Labour Party.

    For us, while political ambition is legitimate for all the actors, the resort to illegitimate process and wilful destruction of public property is anathema to democratic ethos. Also reprehensible are the intrigues and rigging which allegedly trailed the PDP party primary, through which the deputy governor emerged. With the parties’ primaries settled, albeit unconscionably, as claimed by some, the voters should have been left to determine their preferences at the next general election. But instead, it appears the Abuja group is determined to foist its preferred candidate on the state, by impeaching the incumbent governor.

    It is widely feared that it is the determination of those loyal to Senator Anyim to impeach the governor that is precipitating the crisis in the legislature. The fire incident which affected the offices of those loyal to the governor and the subsequent suspension of some of them, lend support to this view. As many believe, President Goodluck Jonathan has his sympathy for those pushing to oust the governor, considering that Senator Anyim is close to him. While those sympathetic to the governor are calling for restraint, those loyal to the former Senate President are pressing hard on the throttle.

    With resort to brinkmanship and criminality, Ebonyi State may pay heavily, just like Anambra State, when hoodlums, in connivance with the presidency went after Senator Chris Ngige, then the state governor. Even more fearful is the burning down of the financial records of Ebonyi State House of Assembly, probably to cover up some illicit deals or to gain an upper hand in the crisis. To show that the fire incident may not be a mere accident, the two groups are already pushing for different reaction to the incident. While the governor’s group has asked that the assembly be closed down, the opposing camp is pressing ahead with the impeachment plans. Unfortunately, the president and his party, like in Anambra, behaved like the ostrich until Tuesday when he  summoned the parties to a meeting.

    In the interest of democracy, we urge the political actors in the state, to remember that the impeachment of a state governor is a constitutional matter. To avoid making a mockery of democracy, due process, as laid down by law and upheld by the courts, must be followed. We also urge the PDP-led Federal Government not to always resort to arm-twisting tactics, to gain advantage over others, just because the Federal Government which it controls is in charge of the instrument of coercion in the country. Law, we urge, should save Ebonyi from anarchy.

  • ‘PDP buying time to get support’

    ‘PDP buying time to get support’

    The Campaign Organisation of Simon Lalong, the governorship flag bearer of the All Progresives Congress (APC) in Plateau State, has said the postponement of the elections will work against the People Democratic Party (PDP).

    Reacting to the change of date of the election, Hon. Festus Fuanter,  media coordinator of APC in Plateau said, “The antics of the ruling party cannot prevent the political revolution of the opposition”

    Fuanter said, “The people of Plateau state had vowed to make a change in this very election, and the delay in the election will not in any way affect the resolve of the people to make a change.

    He therefore called on the teaming supporters of the APC governorship flag bearer not to be discouraged with the postponement but they should remain firm with their resolve to make a change.

    “PDP is only making itself a laughing stock and they are also playing with the intelligentsia of voters. This is election they must hold, it would have been easier for the ruling party to cancel the election, but they can’t do that. They must hold this election, they can’t delay it beyond May 2015, APC is only waiting for victory which will come soon.

    According to Barr. Fuanter, even the Plateau voters have been calling the APC governorship flag bearer to assure him that they remain with him as long as PDP continued to postpone the election?

  • No time to sit on the fence

    As February 14, the day of reckoning for President Jonathan and PDP draws nearer after 16 years of bare-faced stealing by indicted PDP stalwarts, periodic rigging of elections and PDP stranglehold over our people through exploitation of their secret fears and human frailties, there is palpable panic and desperation in PDP family. This is why for the sake of millions of our unemployed youths, the memory of over 12,000 victims of Boko Haram’s mindless killings, hundreds of helpless women and children brutally murdered in their sleep in the Middle Belt region by those the government is yet to identify, in solidarity with thousands who have been turned to refugees in their own country, in protest against the theft of about $20 billion according to Lamido Sanusi and the mismanagement of our economy to the tune of N30 trillion according to Chukwuma Soludo, patriotic Nigerians who care about the future of our children cannot afford to sit on the fence.  Nigerians must join hands to end their 16 years nightmare and six years of national disgrace.

    President Jonathan who publicly declared he wanted to be a one-term president now wants another term of four years after six years in office. He has been moving around the country selling his achievements which include the introduction of cassava bread, available only in Aso Villa seat of government, local rice at four times the cost of imported one when available, increase in federal roads from 5,000 to 25,000 even when those roads critical to our economy like Apapa Tin can Island Port road, Murtala Muhammed International Airport road, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Lokoja-Abuja Expressway, Enugu-Port Harcourt  Expressway, some of which have remained ‘work in progress 10 years after they were flagged off by ex-President Obasanjo; power generation, even when by the account of the minister of power, just about 20% of Nigerians have access to power and less  than 4500MW is generated  after an injection of over $50 billion into the sector. His administration, he claims, has fought insurgency into a standstill even with 20% of the territory he inherited as president in 2011 is now under the control of Boko Haram. He wants our impressionable children to hail him for his railway transformation, a rail system slower than what we had 60 years ago and a cover up for the derailment of Obasanjo rail modernization scheme for which multi-billion contracts were awarded to Chinese firms on two different occasions with huge mobilisations paid without result.

    In 2011, Nigerians were able to make a distinction between PDP that had nothing to sell to Nigerians beyond mindless stealing and confiscation of our national patrimony and the shoeless boy from Otuoke that identified with the plight of most Nigerians. They gave him a landslide victory even without any coherent agenda as to how to address the multi-faceted problems confronting the nation. Today, Nigerians know Jonathan loves no one but himself and his PDP. This is why if he must survive the February 14 hurricane, he must first lay to rest the ghosts of some demons that have haunted his administration in the last six years viz: his character,  Boko Haram,  the elusive Fulani herdsmen and corruption.

    In 2011, with little help from ex-President Obasanjo, President Jonathan undermined the PDP constitution.   Obasanjo who aided and abetted the infamous act saw it as a patriotic undertaking to give the minority a chance so as to end the myth that Nigeria belongs only to the dominant ethnic groups, their parties and their political leaders. He has also claimed publicly that that part of the bargain which was sold to northern governors was that Jonathan will serve one term of four years in addition to two years of Yar’Adua. With the clips of his public acknowledgement that his presidency ends in 2015 now in the public domain, he owes Nigerians an explanation for reneging on an agreement. Calling Obasanjo a motor park tout is not a substitute for his moral obligation to Nigerians.

    Of course, President Jonathan is also haunted by the ghost of Boko Haram. Only last Thursday, the lot fell on neighboring Chad to help us liberate a Nigerian border town earlier taken over by Boko Haram insurgents. Chad’s victory was considered an embarrassment to mighty Nigeria whose once invisible military has been hobbled by politics and corruption. The following day, Saturday January 31, Samil Chergui of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, announced the agreement of African leaders to send 7,500 troops to fight the Boko Haram insurgency in north-east Nigeria. This is coming under a Jonathan administration that had the luxury of deploying 12,000 security personnel led by Musliu Obanikoro, then junior minister of defence, and Adesiyan, the police Affairs minister, both of whom had never visited Borno either to motivate our outgunned soldiers or identify with the plight of the parents of the abducted 276 Chibok girls, to intimidate and arrest opposition leaders during Osun State governorship election last year. The besieged north-east controlled by the opposition has little to offer the President in terms of electoral fortune. But all the same, the President has just about 10 days to tell Nigerians what he would do differently to change our fortune on the battle front beyond his soap-box rhetoric of “they did not buy anything, they did not buy attack helicopters” even after presiding over N3.1 trillion defence security budget in four years in addition to a $1 billion foreign loan he took last year.

    Nigerians are also waiting for the President’s explanation as to why, with awesome apparatus of coercive power of the state at his disposal, he has not been able to identify those behind brutal murder of women and children in the Middle Belt in the last three years. We all understand conflicts and clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers in the region predate President Jonathan. These conflicts according to MIYETTI Allah, Muhammad Bello, the Secretary General of an Association of the Herdsmen, have always been about resource use: Pasture and water, which PDP politicians have exploited using religion and ethnicity factors as well as Nigeria’s inability to regulate influx of foreign herdsmen. President Jonathan had six years to make a difference. If there is the political will, he did not need the National Assembly to create massive grazing zones in all the troubled areas in view of the existence of Land Use Act. Unfortunately for the president, his appointment of the immediate past Inspector General of Police who was indicted by a probe into the Jos crisis and the president’s lack of political will to implement the recommendations of the government probe, it is seen by many that the divisive politics of religion and ethnicity in the Middle Belt between the Fulani settlers and their host communities work to the advantage of the president whose only block support outside his South-south and South-east is the troubled Middle Belt for whom the fear of the Fulani and Muslim is the beginning of wisdom.

    Surrounded mostly by indicted corrupt men, the president is known to be weak in the war against corruption. While still being haunted by the non successful prosecution of his party leaders accused by EFCC of stealing N1.7 trillion under the fuel subsidy regime, while Nigerian anxiously awaits the publication of the forensic investigation to the disappearance of $20b ($10b by government admission) from the NNPC account, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, a former CBN Governor has now also accused Jonathan administration of mismanaging the economy to the tune of N30 trillion.

    As the clock tickles towards the day of reckoning, it does not appear that President Jonathan and PDP are interested in addressing these weighty issues. As  defeats stares those who say the only thing they know how to do is ‘win election’ in the face, desperate PDP family members seem to searching for ways to truncate the electoral process either through sponsored protest to shift the date for the election or create instability by using the judiciary to disqualify the leading opposition presidential candidate. These are indeed desperate times for the PDP. And for those who care for our nation, this is not the time to sit on the fence.