The Nation Newspaper

Tag: waterloo

  • Waney’s waterloo

    Waney’s waterloo

    • Politicians and oil elites in Rivers State hold the key to peace

    Like most other crime kingpins, Johnson Igwedibia (a.k.a. Don Waney), that notorious cultist, armed robber and kidnapper who terrorised Omoku community in Ogba/Ndoni/Egbema Local Government Area of Rivers State finally met his waterloo on January 6. Paradoxically, he was shot to death on water in a foiled escape bid.

    Nemesis caught up with him after the cold-blooded murder, in the early hours of January 1, of about 22 people who had gone to church to give thanks to God for sparing their lives to witness the New Year. According to reports, he was shot while trying to escape when he realised that security men were closing in on him. The outgoing General Officer Commanding, 6 Division, Major-General Eni-Obong Udoh, gave an account of how Waney was killed in a joint operation involving the Army, Police and DSS.

    “You can recall that in the early hours of January 1, 22 innocent people of Omoku were heartlessly murdered while returning from New Year Eve service. There was a presidential directive that the perpetrators of that act must be brought down. We were given a mandate to collaborate with other security agencies in the state to hunt the gang down. We trailed them to Enugu, where they were living in a rented apartment. They were living in Imo State before then.

    “We collaborated with the GOC, in charge of 82 Division and raided their home. Don Waney was mastermind of the January 1 incident, but the attack was physically led by Ikechukwu, his second-in-command and there is another accomplice we will not mention now, but we will get him. We will not rest until we get all of them.”

    Waney’s death should naturally have provoked wild jubilation in Omoku and beyond. But the people were reluctant to celebrate openly when news first filtered out that he and some of his gang members had been killed at last. However, skepticism soon gave way when Waney’s body was displayed, alongside the bodies of his second-in-command, Ikechukwu Adiele, and another gang member, Lucky Ode, by the security agencies. The state government’s confirmation put paid to any further doubts about the fact that Waney had been killed.

    We cannot blame the people for not celebrating too soon They had erupted in jubilation in November, last year, when they heard that Waney had been killed only for it to turn out a ruse. Indeed, reports allege that Waney was irked by that celebration, hence his New Year’s Day reprisal killings. During the raid on his house in Omoku in November, assorted weapons, dynamites, bags of suspected cannabis, full military camouflage uniforms, military boots, military communication radios, 10 human skulls, human bones and other human parts were allegedly recovered from the place. Decomposing bodies of some of his victims were also exhumed in his shrine.

    We commiserate with the families of the dead.

    But more importantly, we are happy that Waney and some of his accomplices have also paid the supreme price for their atrocities. Although it would have been our pleasure to have such an experienced criminal apprehended (perhaps he would give some lead to aid the security men in understanding their modus operandi), rather than killed, it would appear the security agents had no choice, given their account that Waney and some of his accomplices were trying to escape when surrounded.

    While we admit that criminals abound all over the country, we still shudder that Rivers State harbours so many high-ranking ones. An area to look at is the role of politicians in the state in arming some of these criminals for political ends. Another point that should be interrogated is the claim by the state governor, Nyesom Wike, that some oil companies are providing resources to some of these anti-social elements to destroy the society, in the name of security.

    The government has to wake up to address the failure of security nationwide and the pervasive culture of impunity. We can only hope that the death of Waney and his men will teach the other criminally-minded in our midst the lesson that crime does not pay and that the long arms of the law are not too short to catch up with them.

  • Finally, Trump faces waterloo

    Finally, Trump faces waterloo

    Short of a seismic eruption in the United States’ political landscape, that country looks formatted to make history by electing the first female President in more than 200 years of its practice of electoral democracy. Democratic Party candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, at different times previously First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State, looks impregnable on her homeward run towards becoming America’s first ‘Madam President’ in the election that is set for just eight days from now, with early voting having already commenced in a number of states.

    The candidacy of Clinton’s Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, has been on steady tailspin and there is simply no time left for a turnaround. An Associated Press-GfK poll published last weekend, 12 days before the presidential poll, showed Clinton gaining on Trump nationally by 14 percentage points. A TIME magazine report said the poll, conducted after the final presidential debate, found Clinton ahead among likely voters at 51 percent to Trump’s 37 percent. Clinton had 90 percent support among likely Democrat voters, plus 15 percent support among moderate Republicans – a profile showing she had not just consolidated her Democratic following but had managed to also draw Republican voters. The margin of error for the AP-GfK poll, conducted between October 20-24, was put at plus or minus 2.75 percentage points.

    During the candidates’ last face-off in a debate penultimate week, Trump scandalously broke with a two century-old convention of American politics by withholding assurance that he would concede defeat if duly outran electorally by Clinton. He doubled down at a subsequent campaign in Delaware, Ohio, saying he would respect the outcome only if he wins. A loser’s refusal to concede defeat is, of course, totally out of character with the American democracy; but, as with other electoral jurisdictions including Nigeria, it by no means detracts from the validity of the outcome. In other words, the determination of the next U. S. President will be on the basis of votes’ superiority and not the loser’s concession, conventional as that may be. In any event, most the latest opinion polls in that country revealed commanding unanimity among Americans that Clinton will win the November 8 election.

    The final nail in Trump’s bid for the American presidency was struck by a recent leakage of a lewd recording, in itself more than 20 years old, by which he boasted a licence to handle women improperly by virtue of being a celebrity. Even though he stepped out of character to publicly apologise for the conversation on that tape, his subsequent defence that it was just ‘locker room talk’ and nothing that he did in reality triggered a slew of allegations by women who came up to allege indecent encounters over the years with the businessman-turned-politician. At the last count, no fewer than 14 women had outed with damning claims of moral impropriety against Trump. The Republican candidate naturally denied any acquaintance with the women and said they were all lying, but very few outside his passionate supporters were convinced by his denials.

    The trouble with Trump’s candidacy, however, did not begin with the recent damning tape leak and the string of outings by women accusers. His trademarks since he declared for the race mid-2015 have been bombast, bluster, xenophobic bullying and arrogant swagger not seen before in modern history of his country’s democracy. This is one politician who betrayed the worst in America’s political culture and sheer revision of exemplary hallmarks of that model democracy. For a country founded as an immigrant nation and which prides itself in historical plurality, Trump started out in his campaign with the harshest xenophobic rhetoric ever seen in American politics and comparable perhaps only to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi ideology. He advocated a closed country and described immigrants from neighbouring Mexico as druggists and rapists, vowing to erect a border wall that Mexico will be compelled to pay for.

    Trump’s rhetoric mutated at some point into verbal hostility against other racial groups, though many of the statements attributed to him were more likely by proxy scripting than truly originated from him. He was reported, for instance, to have described African-Americans as lazy and good at nothing other than gallivanting, eating and making love; and was separately quoted as telling ‘Black Lives Matter’ advocates: “If black lives matter, then go back to Africa. We’ll see how much they matter there.” An attributed comment that got Nigerians rattled the most was at a purported rally in Wichita, Kansas, where he allegedly threatened that if he wins the presidential race, he would expel our compatriots resident in his country to make America great again. He was quoted as saying: “Why can’t they stay in their own country? Why? I’ll tell you why. Because they are corrupt. Their governments are so corrupt they rob the people blind and bring it all here to spend. And their people run away and come down here and take our jobs! We can’t have that!”

    On campaign trail, Trump’s electioneering was a bad example for upcoming democracies like Nigeria where political culture yet lacks the level of civility and decency that had made the United States a model to emulate. The Republican candidate trafficked in rhetoric of hate, exclusion and intemperance, and literally egged his loyal supporters into peeling down to bare knuckle confrontation with those who shared views different from theirs, thereby promoting physical violence at his campaign rallies. In a large measure, and quite uncharacteristic of the American model of electioneering discourse, issue-based orientation of campaign was replaced by instigation of base instincts and hate mongering.

    With just one week before Election Day, American voters appear to have reset their electoral values and are holding the candidates firmly to these values. Trump fell grossly short of acceptable norms and must prepare to pay the price. From all indications, Hillary Clinton is headed for a big win, and is obviously looking beyond the contest with Donald Trump already to angle for big wins by Democratic candidates in the U. S. Congress. The beauty in all of these, for me, is that American voters are calling the shots. Never mind the hype by Mr. Trump that the elections were being rigged – and that, he alleged, by the media! – voters are stamping in their preferences and redeeming their country from a dangerous slide in electoral culture that Trump signposted. Voters in our own clime can be cultivated in this mould. Relevant stakeholders could work at a level of political education that would enable voters to hold the political elite to preferred ethics, morals and conventions. Achieving desired results is without doubt a long journey down; but voters must begin to ask reasoned questions of the elite, and make informed electoral choices based on the answers to those questions.

  • Rivers 2015: Wike ‘ll meet his waterloo, says APC

    Rivers 2015: Wike ‘ll meet his waterloo, says APC

    The All Progressives Congress (APC), Rivers State chapter, has said the Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, would meet his political waterloo next year.It described his governorship ambition as a pipe dream.

    Rivers APC, through its Chairman, Dr. Davies Ibiamu Ikanya, noted yesterday in Port Harcourt that members of the ruling party in the state (APC) would be happy to have Wike, the former Chief of Staff, Government House, as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), thereby making it easy to emerge victorious.

    APC said: “We have noted Wike’s boast that he will beat other candidates, even in their wards, in the governorship election. This is nothing, but the blowing of hot air by a political Lilliputian, who seems to have forgotten how he achieved the little relevance that is now intoxicating him.

    “Wike owes his position as a junior minister to the Rivers State APC leader, Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi. The same Amaechi, who made Wike, will politically un-make him during the 2015 governorship election. Wike is living in the past, as eminent persons that made him somebody politically are now in the APC.

    “We know Wike’s tricks and we know how to cage him, when necessary. So, without us, he is a nobody politically in Rivers State. Wike is the easiest candidate for us to beat and that was why we fasted for him to emerge as the PDP’s candidate in the poll. We are continuing in prayer along this line. The thrashing that Wike and the PDP will receive from the APC during the election will be so heavy that he may be forced to consider premature retirement from politics.”

    The ruling party in Rivers reminded the two-term Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government that he and Amaechi, the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), are from the Ikwerre ethnic nationality, in the multi-ethnic state.

    APC said: “Wike has a lot of factors counting against him. One of these disadvantages is that he is from the Ikwerre axis. The fact remains that no son or daughter of Ikwerre will succeed Governor Amaechi, an Ikwerre, who would have governed Rivers State for eight years by May 2015. So, that rules Wike out.

    “The Minister of State for Education has also boasted that the primary and secondary schools Amaechi has built do not exist in other parts of Rivers State, besides Port Harcourt. If Wike is elected, God forbid, he is capable of bulldozing the 23 model secondary schools and the over 300 model primary schools scattered in other local governments, sparing, may be, only those in Port Harcourt.

    “Rivers people will not take such a risk with somebody whose only achievement as acting Minister of Education was to ensure that our universities were closed for over six months, while the polytechnics and colleges of education were closed for about one year. Wike should stop wasting his time, because he obviously does not have what it takes to govern Rivers State.”

    The ruling party admonished the peace-loving people of the state to support Amaechi and his administration.

  • Governor: ‘he’s heading for waterloo’

    Governor Rauf Aregbesola has reacted to the debate challenge of Senator Iyiola Omisore, saying he is heading for waterloo.

    Speaking through Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, the Director, Bureau of Communications and Strategy, Office of the Governor, Ogbeni Aregbesola said: “It has been brought to our attention, an interview reportedly granted by Senator Iyiola Omisore, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirant in Osun wherein he challenged Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola to a public debate.

    “One is compelled to view this as captured best in what Yoruba would describe as ‘Sigidi fe sere ete, oni kiwon gbe oun lo sodo l’owe’. (Meaning; ‘Bent on meeting its Waterloo, the clay statue says its owner should carry it to the river to have a swim’.

    “Should Ogbeni Aregbesola ever be afraid of a debate anywhere in the world, would it be against an Omisore? What would be the rule of engagement in such a debate as Nigerians know that 10 Omisores cannot come close to the apparent mental alertness, creative ingenuity and ideological robustness of Aregbesola?

    “We congratulate him on his self-delusion as the politician with the best CV and an engineer with the best practice in the Southwest. Sometimes, we need this kind of comic relief as provided by Omisore, especially in the face of the many absurdities his party, the PDP, continues to assault our collective psyche with on a daily basis.

    “Oh! He truly flaunts a dossier that can never be the envy of anyone in a sane society. A former deputy governor, yes, but one that was impeached! A senator, yes, but one whose election was nullified! An engineer but with no noticeable records of performance anywhere!

    “If Omisore is in any doubt about his lack of popularity among the people whom he claimed to have represented as a senator, why could he not win his ward in the last National Assembly election when a credible electoral practice was in place? And how else could he have admitted defeat other than his failure to challenge the victory of Senator Jide Omoworare at the tribunal?

    “We thank him for acknowledging the massive urban renewal project of the Aregbeosla administration. But we advise him and other PDP leaders to toe the path of honour by allowing the urban renewal project officials continue their work by allowing the removal of the structures standing in the way of construction in front of the PDP campaign office in Osogbo. The party’s campaign office cannot be a sacred cow in the face of banks, hotels, filling stations, other business premises and indeed, the campaign office of Governor Aregbesola that have so far been affected in the removal of structures for the urban renewal projects.”