Adamu’s Forced Exit: The Post-Power Humiliation Of Buhari

 By Olu Fasan

Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s immediate past president, had a post-power syndrome. He once said he would find life difficult if a president from another party succeeded him. He genuinely feared that a successor from another party would treat him and his allies the same way he treated his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, and his loyalists in 2015.

*Adamu and Buhari 
So, Buhari exploited his incumbency and pulled all the stops to secure “victory” for Bola Tinubu, saying “he will continue my legacy”. Indeed, in his last days in office, Buhari made several appointments and launched several initiatives as if saying: “they’re safe in Tinubu’s hands.”

El-Rufai Did Not Say Anything New

By Charles Okoh

It is completely heart-rending and morally incomprehensible the level some Nigerians can go to excuse President Muhammadu Buhari for the wreck that his administration has made of Nigeria and Nigerians. His spin doctors would blame anything and everything under the sun for his sloppy performance in office, except the culprits himself. Buhari’s failure is self-inflicted and he should completely take responsibility for the failure of his government.

*Buhari and el-Rufai 

Today, everybody is in one queue or the other. The perennial fuel scarcity has remained with the country for virtually all of the President’s seven-and-half years’ tenure, so far, and everybody and association or union, is blamed for the failure of the petroleum sector, except the substantive minister of petroleum, who happens to be President Buhari.

But We Warned Tinubu About Buhari

 By Charles Okoh

There must be something about Abeokuta that makes the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to wait until his visit there to literally spit fire, like the legendary dragon. It was in Abeokuta on June 3, 2022 that Tinubu made his now famous emilokan cry.

*Buhari and Tinubu 

Before the June 3 outburst last year, Tinubu had survived a surreptitious plot to deny him the shot at the presidency in spite of his gentleman’s agreement with President Buhari before the 2015 presidential elections. An unwritten agreement which guaranteed that in the principle of one-turn-deserves-another, Tinubu had rallied his men and resources to ensure that Buhari, who had failed three times previously, was successful at the fourth time of asking.

Why Adamu’s APC Is Afraid Of BVAS, E-Transmission Of Results

 By Charles Okoh

“I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.” – Georg C. Lichtenburg

It is no longer debatable that the only problem keeping this nation down is the problem of fixing the governance jigsaw. We have been held down by the fact that rather than a democracy where the wishes of the people reign supreme; we have practiced neo-feudalism where a few people lord it over the rest of us and dictate who gets what or into any office in the land.

Adamu

This has never been as bad and brazen since independence as they have been since the turn of the fourth republic in 1999.The result being that there has been a steady and ever-increasing level of apathy towards elections in the country.

For instance, in the 2019 presidential elections that secured President Muhammadu Buhari, his second term, only 34.75 percent of registered voters actually voted in elections, according data released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Abdullahi Adamu Living In A Fool’s Paradise

 By Charles Okoh

The greatest disservice any man can do to himself is to deliberately deceive himself; thinking he is fooling others. Many years ago, the then chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the late Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, woke up one morning, perhaps filled with an overdose of self-worth and having overrated his party, concluded that the PDP would rule for the next 60 years.

*Adamu and Buhari

Nothing else could have prompted this outburst, other than the fact that he would probably have been too convinced that his behemoth party, the self-styled biggest party on the continent, was doing very well, so much so that it would remain in office for as long as it wished. Well, he and his party members were well alive to realize the tomfoolery in trying to play god or not taking appropriate assessment of the party’s significance, relevance and true worth.

2023: Between Atiku, Tinubu And Obi

 By Charles Okoh

For Nigeria, the year 2023 is just not another year. It is a year that will determine the fate of the nation. The campaigns by political parties would not commence until September 28, 2022 as provided by Sec. 94(1) of the Electoral Act 2022. But, the tension around the election has reached boiling point. What happens to this nation going forward would be determined by the choice we make in 2023.

*Obi, Tinubu, Atiku 

There are several reasons why 2023 could make or mar Nigeria. One of the biggest reasons why Nigeria and Nigerians must get it right is that for the past seven years we have been living the reality and facing the pangs that come with our wrong choice of President Muhammadu Buhari. In seven short years, Buhari has squandered the enormous goodwill he had coming to that office. That more than anything else, is the reason there is so much tension in the land. It is the reason Nigeria has remained on the edge of a precipice.

As the campaigns commence, it is imperative on all political parties and candidates to focus on issue-based campaigns. This way we can ensure that the polity is not unnecessarily heated up and it will also afford us the opportunity to assess the competencies and preparedness of those who seek to rule us in order to ensure transparent elections in which only the votes cast by citizens determine the winner. Sentiments, emotions and selfishness must take the backstage in making that vital decision.

Nigeria: How Drug Lords May Influence 2023 Poll

 

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

I was in deep conversations with stakeholders in the organised civil Rights community in the Country on the revelation that was made by the then Anambra State’s governor-elect Professor Chukwuma Soludo shortly after he emerged as the successor in office of the immediate past Chief executive of that state that drug barons have captured political powers in Nigeria.

The erudite Professor of Banking and Finance then proceeded at length to offer profound exposition of his claim. As we progress we will cite his assertion in full.

It was in that same period that the Chief executive officer of the National Drugs Laws Enforcement Agency, Brigadier General Mohammed Buba Marwa, hinted that the agency may conduct drug tests on politicians aspiring for political offices.

Will Northern Politicians Do To Tinubu What They Did To Wike?

 By Rotimi Fasan

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has been spending the last couple of few weeks fence-minding the relationship between their presidential flagbearer, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and his closest rival and challenger at the convention that produced the presidential flagbearer, Nyesom Wike.

*Buhari and Tinubu

The winning side of the contest initially acted like a short visit to Wike, whose hope of being selected as the winner’s running mate was not only dashed when Ifeanyi Okowa, Delta State governor, was picked over and above him, but was also portrayed as patently unfit for any position outside the one he presently holds as governor of Rivers State- the Atiku team acted as if snubbing Wike in the manner it did required nothing more than an advertised short visit of party members to his home to soothe his bruised ego.

This it promptly did and went about its way planning for the next phase of the presidential contest while its foot soldiers went about with their narratives of triumph, highlighting the unmarketability of an Atiku-Wike ticket on account of the real and perceived inadequacies of Wike that are too well-known to be repeated here.

Open Memo To President Muhammadu Buhari On The Impending 2023 APC Presidential Primary

Your Excellency, 

It isn't my intention to bother you with details of the drama of the absurd that attended the emergence of another Fulani - not even the majority Hausa ethnic nationality in the North - as the candidate of the major opposition party, the PDP. It happened because of two factors:  

First was the betrayal by prodigal Southern governors. They were the same ones disturbing our peace with threats of an Armageddon that would engulf the nation if the presidency doesn't rotate to the South in 2023. But each of them bought the pie in the sky of being made the running-mate. After all, in their world view, it is better to be servants in Paradise than rulers in Hell. 

Second, it was a bitter lesson for under-age school-boy politicians in the South to be tutored in the art of deception and betrayal by Fulani masters of the game. 

Tribute To Alex Ekwueme: A Man Without Bitterness

By Dan Agbese

The bells tolled for Dr Alex Ekwueme on November 19. And the former vice-president answered the call that no mortal has the power to reject. In his going, we have lost the most level-headed politician our country has ever produced. If you describe Nigerian politicians as gentlemen, you waste the word. If you describe Ekwueme as a gentleman, you nail the word. It is the word that best describes him as a politician and as a statesman.

President Buhari with Dr. Ekwueme at
the State House 

I first met the then vice-president sometime in 1983. I was editor of the New Nigerian at the time. I sought an appointment to see him because I was increasingly worried about the allegations of corruption against the Shehu Shagari administration that had become disturbingly rife. He graciously received me in his well-appointed office. I did not go through a phalanx of protocol and security men to see him. He was alone in his office when he welcomed me with a moderated smile. He had not yet cultivated the grey mane of his later years. I saw a handsome man who, I thought, did not quite cut the picture of the expansive Nigerian politician. What he exuded was the air of political power but the cool, calm air infused with intellectualism. He was so disarming that I felt momentarily disarmed. He asked after my family. I found that both unusual and interesting. He said my newspaper was doing a good job with its editorial stand on national issues. I felt my head expanding with pride.