Shettima Goofs: No Forces Want To Pull Down Nigeria!

 By Olu Fasan

Ahead of last year’s general elections, I wrote a piece titled “2023: Shettima Unfit To Be Nigeria’s Vice-President” (Vanguard, September 22, 2022). I argued that despite his education and seeming bibliophilism, Kashim Shettima suffers from negative parrhesia, expressing indecorous views freely without aforethought.

*Shettima

I wrote: “With Shettima’s inherent tetchiness and truculence, he would be gratuitously provocative. And with his uncouthness and indiscretion, he would be utterly divisive and toxifying.” Well, since he became vice-president, Shettima has done enough, with several infuriating comments, to validate my opinion of him. 

Oludele Idowu on Ben Nwabueze; Undiluted Nastiness!

 By Tony Eluemunor

Which infernal forces seized Mr. Oludele Idowu when he poured scorn on  late Prof Ben Nwabueze, a man well-respected whether in life or death, an author of over 30 books, the second Nigerian to have a PhD based on his publications and the second Nigerian academic to become a SAN based simply on his publications?

*Prof Nwabueze 

It is a testimony to the nasty times in Nigeria that a man could disdain verifiable facts, and actually not feel ashamed that his name should be associated with crass untruths, and actually publish such nastiness to further bury the concept of unity in Nigeria. 

Nigeria: From Buharisation To Tinubuisation

 By Ochereome Nnanna

When a woman marries twice, she is better placed to know which husband treated her better. As a country, Nigeria has married two husbands since 1999: the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the All Progressives Congress, APC. No doubt, we experienced a far better Nigeria under the PDP than the APC. This claim has nothing to do with partisanship. Whatever evil the PDP committed, the APC regimes have multiplied them tenfold and added fresh, vile inventions of their own.

*Buhari and Tinubu 

The PDP was founded by political leaders who tried to use the outcomes of the Abacha Constitutional Conference to build an improved democracy and governance system. The PDP was built on the foundation of equitable power sharing and rotation, as well as the Federal Character Principle enshrined in Section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution, as agreed at the Conference.

Protecting The New Coup From Heaven

 By Pat Utomi

The current travails of our country are legion, from pain beyond what is reasonable to expect at petrol stations to physical fight at ATMs; the fuel scarcity and currency change processes are eroding our humanity. Add to these the gripping poverty which has been weaponized by the traditional political parties for vote buying, voter suppression and ‘incentives’ to vote for parties and candidates so undeserving of a seat at the table of public life, the season of discontent in Nigeria seems so grim and dark.

*Utomi

Add to this corruption that cries to high heavens for the wrath of God, insecurity so threatening and inflation that literarily wipes out income of those who desperately need it because they are so deep in water, that, as Tawney’s metaphor points out, even a ripple can disown them, and for the need for a citizen crystalizes as the imperative of the moment.

Poor Aminu And The Almighty First Lady

 By Dr. Ugoji Egbujo

The meek ones have, like Shakespeare, said, “The quality of mercy is not strained.” Other others have said, like Moses, “An eye for an eye.” In other words, “spare the rod and spoil the child.” Yet Others have, like Jesus, drawn the line and said, “He who has never sinned alike, let him cast the first stone.”  

*Aisha Buhari 

A student of a university in Jigawa insulted the first lady. Then he disappeared. According to the Student Union, for days, neither the boy’s parents nor the school authorities knew his whereabouts. The Student Union’s president said after a nervous search that exhausted the parents and the union for days, the boy was discovered.

Does APC Deserve Another Tenure In Abuja?

 By Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha

One of the strengths of democracy is the power of the people to determine who leads the country. Fixed tenures are a way of making politicians subject themselves to the will of the people at the end of a cycle. As a result, in countries where democracy is practised, the average politician is often conscious of the next elections. The electorate must be satisfied with performance before voting a party back to power. In some jurisdictions, for example, in most African countries, the electorate is often confronted with making a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea, between the lesser of the two evils.

At the national level, the APC government has been in power for seven odd years, led by President Muhammadu Buhari. If we were to judge the national government on the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of Security, Education, Employment, Social Security, Business climate, Inflation, Infrastructure, Corruption Index, the party should stand no chance of winning the elections in 2023.

Ending Impunity On Crime Against Journalists

By Isah Ismaila Gagarawa

Every second of November is proclaimed as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists as members of states are urged by the United Nations General Assembly to implement definite measures in countering the present culture of impunity.  However, according to the Global impunity Index report published by the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, there have been several cases of impunity on murders of journalists in countries where ‘democracy’ is practiced.

It is indeed painful when people capacitated by the power of the constitution in carrying out their duties, are being killed on a regular basis around the world; and their perpetrators are not prosecuted.

Alhaji Lateef Jakande @90

By Nnedi Ogaziechi

 “I am most grateful for the opportunity to serve Lagos and to have turned 90” – Alhaji Lateef Jakande

The first civilian governor of Lagos state, Alhaji Lateef Jakande, must by turning 90 years overgrown, though symbolically the title of ‘baba kekere’ that he was fondly called by admirers who felt that he comes second in political achievements in office to a late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He has truly earned his reputation as one of the most loved and adored former governors in Nigeria.

Lateef Jakande

In a country that is not serious about documentations and historical records, it is apposite to celebrate this very iconic statesman by all indices. Alhaji Lateef Jakande today stands out like the proverbial iroko tree amongst shrubs in the political environment in Nigeria. It is equally instructive that a man like him who is a definition of what a leader should be is alive in today’s Nigeria and looking at most politicians serve themselves instead of the people.

June 12: Barbers At Work

By Banji Ojewale
"You cannot shave a man’s head in his absence"

—MKO Abiola, winner of 1993 Presidential Election

*Late MKO Abiola

Buhari, El-Rufai And Other Body Bag Democrats

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Any doubt about the nation being imperilled by its warped leadership recruitment has been counteracted by sundry developments in this electoral season. We are again confronted with the stark reminder that in over five decades, those we have entrusted with leadership have often unravelled as a bunch of incompetents who strive to plumb the nadir of retrogression. Thus, the tragedy is that in every epoch, the messiah we think has been thrown up to reverse the savage depredations of his predecessor uncannily considers himself as holding the mandate of surpassing the greed and a lack of direction of past national villains.

*President Buhari and Gov El-Rufai 

 To be sure, this bleak state of national affairs becomes inevitable as long as it is not those who have prepared for leadership that we allow to lead. We are neither attracted to them by the incipient genius in leadership they have demonstrated in community service nor their championing of a pro-people cause. Eventually, those we are saddled with as leaders, in the words of Nasir El-Rufai are “accidental public servants.” 

Stop! Nigerians Lives Matters

By Ene Gift Linus

Democracy on paper is not enough. Free, fair, and violence-free elections are crucial for the protection and deepening of representative democracy in any country. It is shameful and inhuman when political candidates use their own citizens as pawn to pave the way for their political ambitions. Unfortunately, electoral violence has been a continuous problem in Nigerian politics since she became a federation in 1963. 

Usually, the violence and killings occur either before the election (electoral campaign) or after the election.The First Republic (1963-1966) collapsed due to the  widespread violence unleashed by politicians in the disputed 19665 general election that led to the first military coup of January 15, 196. During the Second Republic (1979), the country returned to civil rule, but not long before some politicians again, resorted to electoral violence especially during the August 1983 general election where political observers said that, Akin Omoboriowo versus Governor Adekunle Ajasin saga in the old Ondo State allegedly involved in electoral fraud in the state led to three days of severe killings and arson, resulting in military takeover on December 31, 1983.

Liberating Nigeria Through Advocacy And Sensitization

By Chukwuka Igwegbe

As the 2019 general elections draws near, there has been a huge clamour for the populace to get their Permanent Voters Card (PVC) and vote for credible leaders. The clamour, though having good intentions is not rightly placed. Information available reveals that majority of the voters from the 2015 general elections were the uneducated masses. The educated class were reluctant to come out to vote, and in actual sense, most do not even have their permanent voters card. This nonchalant attitude by the educated class during election period has been the reason for the continuous bad leadership being experienced in Nigeria.

Despite having a skewed process in political parties in Nigeria that favours the emergence of elected leaders backed by money bags, the educated class have a lot of roles to play to change the narrative.

Buhari 2019: The Audacity Of Buharideens

By Martins-Hassan Eze

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance  and an conscientious stupidity” — Dr. Martin-Lurther King Jnr.

Walahi! This thing called shame some Dudu’s just don’t have it. How can a man with conscience and human heart refuse to acknowledge the regrettable fact the GMB is a disaster; a ticking time bomb. Is it not now clear that GMB is the worst thing to happen to Nigeria since the return of civilian rule in 1999? Yet, some mugus are not just shameful enough to stop selling the candidature of this Mobutu in the social media. And, I ask. Is the protection of lives and properties no longer the primary responsibility of government? Have PBM and APC not failed woefully in this regard? Perhaps, for Elrufai; the petit Kaduna tyrant and Dean, college of Buharideens, good governance is all about ethnic cleaning and political jihad. 

President Buhari 

Who should we blame? Did KONGI the noble laureate not bemoan the fact that social media is a vomitorium some years back?  Some folks think that the social media is their village stream. They just jump into the square with rotten and stinking narratives: fighting corruption is the reason why we should become slaves in our country. Fighting corruption is also the reason why all ancestral lands of non-Muslims in the north should become a mass grave and grazing land for Fulani herdsmen.

Buhari, Abacha’s Loot And The Poor

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

As the administration of the President Muhammadu Buhari lurches into the twilight amid the fast-vanishing possibility of securing a second mandate, it flails in all directions in search of survival. It is striving currently to make the poor among us to accept as reality the illusion that it can ratchet up their fortunes in the remaining days.

*Gen Abacha 

It is an unrelieved illusion because since the administration has failed in three years to improve the lot of the people, it cannot in less than one year secure the acumen to accomplish this. Rather, the citizens should steel themselves for the prospect of their immiseration reaching its nadir in the remaining period of this administration. 

To Kill In The Name Of God Is Outrageous Murder – Archbishop Obinna

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THE CHINUA ACHEBE 

FOUNDATION INTERVIEW SERIES

  April 2006

All Rights Reserved ©

______________________

*Archbishop Obinna during the interview 

Dr. Anthony J.V. Obinna, the Catholic Archbishop of Owerri, is one of Africa’s foremost theologians and scholars. Born on June 26, 1946 in Emekuku (near Owerri), and educated at St. Peter Claver Seminary, Okpala (near Aba), and Bigard Memorial Seminary, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on April 19, 1972. Obinna graduated with First Class Honours in Divinity, from the Bigard Memorial Seminary, an affiliate of the Pontifical Urban University, Rome. He left for Rome for a Masters Degree in Theology, and then for the United States for another Masters in Religious Studies, concentrating on Religion and Culture, and then a PhD in Education and Theology.

A former lecturer in the Religious Studies Department of the Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri, Archbishop Obinna is the current Chair of the Education Committee of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Nigeria (CBCN). He was ordained a Bishop on September 4, 1993, and became the first Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri when it was created in 1994.

In this interview with UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE, Archbishop Obinna canvasses an attitudinal change, which he hopes will help steer Nigeria out of its present political, moral, and economic descent, and reroute it to the path of progress and lasting development.

Excerpts:

Your Grace, do you think we can in all honesty say that we have freedom of worship in Nigeria today?

Well, constitutionally there is freedom of worship. So, to some extent, it is possible to say: yes, Nigerians worship as they choose. But we have had problems in certain parts of our country, where people were prevented from worshipping, as they desire. There have been attempts to muzzle Christians in some parts of the country, and that goes to show that the freedom of worship enshrined in the constitution is not given its full play. In the more Christian-dominated areas, I believe that there is no prevention of anybody from being a Moslem, from worshipping God. But in some areas of our country, there have been churches that were bulldozed, and land allocations have been refused to Christian worshippers.

Why President Buhari And June 12 Can Never Meet

By Jesutega Onokpasa

Apart from his recent June 12 gimmick, President Muhammadu Buhari had hitherto never mentioned MKO Abiola or even June 12 in any positive light. In any case, since Gen Sanni Abacha who stole Abiola’s mandate and whom Buhari happily, thankfully and gratefully worked for remains Buhari’s hero, then that same Buhari cannot deserve any moral credit on account of anything he does about June 12, however laudable.

*President  Buhari 

The bitter truth is that the only viable explanation for his sudden volte face is that Buhari, seeing his Northern hegemony in tatters in the Middle Belt thanks to his rampaging cattle herding kinsmen and clearly perceiving himself to be a drowning man, now finds himself clutching to Abiola (whom he hitherto never showed any regard for) and to June 12 (which he hitherto never expressed any fidelity to) for sheer survival.

What June 12 Reveals About Nigerian Democracy

By Femi Aribisala

Exactly 25 years ago, a landmark election was held in Nigeria after ten long years of military rule. There were two main contestants: Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party and Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention.  Abiola was from the South-west: Tofa from the North-west.

*Gen Abacha, MKO Abiola, Bola Tinubu (behind Abacha)

 Although the results of the election have never been officially certified, nevertheless, they are well known and readily-accessible.  Abiola won with 8,243,209 votes; while Tofa lost with 5,982,087 votes.