Gabon Can Happen To Any Country!

 By Abiodun Komolafe

There’s always a general tendency which is often ignored at the peril of governments; and that’s the fact that bad governance brings exposure. Of course, this exposure comes in all ramifications. When people get dissatisfied at home, they look abroad for succor. Human beings are like that.

What has helped the Francophone countries to remain silent for too long is the principle of assimilation – to be brainwashed like robots; unlike other colonizers who allowed people to be themselves. That’s why countries like Nigeria and Ghana experienced coups decades ago because, from the British culture, they saw bad governance and reacted.

NLC And The Big ‘War’ Ahead

 By Ochereome Nnanna

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, is saddled with three mandates. The first is the classical or labour mandate – fighting for the interests of the working class. The second is the social mandate – protecting the interests of the masses in an environment where the ruling elite have increasingly become more selfish, corrupt and incompetent than ever.

It was under the presidency of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole that NLC assumed the social mandate on behalf of Nigerians who were subjected to series of fuel price hikes by the Olusegun Obasanjo government. These measures affected the workers and the general public equally, so Oshiomhole led Labour to bravely tackle the Obasanjo government. From that moment on, the people started looking up to Labour to deploy for them whenever government introduced policies that stoked hardship.

Dokpesi: A Broadcast Exponent Stages A Final Show

 By Okoh Aihe

Today, Dr Raymond Aleogho Dokpesi will return to Agenebode with his friends. The big boys who have been with him most of his life, the crème de la crème of the society with the incandescent stars, the ordinary folks of the society for whom he had so much love, having struggled up from extreme poverty himself, his professional colleagues – the marine engineers and broadcasters, who cheered him on as he broke new grounds for their industries, and the Dokpesi family, which is quite large; they will gather in Agenebode for a grand exit party that will do their son good.

*Dokpesi

I don’t know whether Sunny Ade will be there, the grand musician with electric feet and even electric fingers as he commands the guitar into entertaining obedience. He loves Jimmy Cliff too and remains one of his early friends as well. Agenebode will receive big people from government, businesses and even the entertainment industry, such as had never been witnessed in the history of that beautiful town by the River Niger,  in honour of a son that has planted their name firmly on the global map. 

‘Democracy Day’: The Deception And Betrayal Of ‘June 12 Activists’

 By Olu Fasan

General Ibrahim Babangida erred tragically and did a great disservice to Nigeria by annulling the presidential election of June 12, 1993. But nothing has deepened the wounds more than the deception and betrayal of the so-called “June 12 activists”, who turned the annulment into a self-serving political lodestar and built their political careers around it, yet bastardised the spirit of the June 12 election by acquiring power through a deeply flawed presidential poll that violated universal rules of credible elections.

*MKO Abiola 

Earlier this week, General Babangida said the “gains” of the June 12, 1993 presidential election were squandered in succeeding elections. He told journalists: “It was adjudged the freest and fairest election in Nigeria, yet politicians have blatantly ignored that beauty: the beauty of credible elections.” How ironic that the man who flagrantly annulled an election now talks, 30 years later, about the “gains” and “beauty” of the same election!

Obidient Movement As A Fascist Group

 By Promise Adiele

For the sake of peace in Nigeria, let us unanimously agree that the Obidient Movement is a fascist group. (Make peace for reign, abi?) But if we must subscribe to that spiteful narrative, let us innovatively, redefine and explicate fascism. Although generally understood as an authoritarian rule that abhors opposition, fascism must acquire a new identity for a better understanding in Nigeria since it is associated with the famous, radical Obidient Movement. 

*Peter Obi mobbed by a crowd of admirers...

In Nigeria, the brand of fascism associated with the Obidient Movement means rejecting all forms of official criminality and conspiracy in governance. It means the revolutionary denunciation of all manipulative tendencies which invidiously compromise the architecture of equitable, democratic representation. It means all efforts to uproot the edifice of deception, outrageous villainy, and the entrenchment of illegitimate power outposts in Nigeria. It means the attack against all forms of venal forces that have kept the country in the doldrums. 

Tinubu Is Right, FG Has Failed

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

It was obvious to all discerning minds from the get-go that the 2023 elections would be like no other. However, even the most perceptible of political observers could never have imagined the breadth of the incongruities, if not outright illogicalities, that are underpinning the contest. The ironies are as breathtaking as the absurdities are unimaginable.

*Tinubu and Buhari 

Imagine a situation where, 23 days before the presidential and National Assembly elections, the candidate of the ruling party is skewering the president of the country, calling him, literally, an unthinking, good-for-nothing president at every campaign stop; a leading light of the ruling party, a state governor, is accusing the “cabal in the presidency” of sabotaging their own candidate; and the opposition party and their presidential candidate are vigorously defending a president that his own people have thrown under the bus. And wait for it – the presidency is telling the chieftains of the opposition party to weep for themselves. 

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.

Tinubu As President? Buhari Must Really Hate Nigeria!

 By Olu Fasan

Ahead of the 1993 presidential election, General Ibrahim Babangida, the then military head of state, made a profound statement. He said: “I don’t know who will succeed me, but I know who will not.” Sadly, that statement panned out with the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Yet, in principle, it was a perfectly reasonable statement. 

*Buhari and Tinubu

Here’s why. If General Babangida had damaging intelligence on MKO Abiola, the presumed winner of the election, an intelligence that could bring international shame on Nigeria, he had a duty to stop him from running for president. 

Babangida’s eternal mistake, assuming he had such intelligence, was to allow Abiola to run, encourage Nigerians to vote and then annul the election. But there was nothing wrong with saying “I don’t know who will succeed me, but I know who will not,” provided it was in the national interest. Of course, in a democracy, a president cannot simply say: “I know who will not succeed me.” But a president should signal a nation’s values.

2023: Shettima Unfit To Be Nigeria’s Vice-President

 By Olu Fasan 

If Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, becomes president next year, it is not only his exclusionist Muslim-Muslin presidency that would unsettle Nigeria, but also his would-be deputy, Alhaji Kashim Shettima. 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. Truth is, a Vice-President Shettima would be unlike any civilian vice-president in Nigeria’s history. 

*Tinubu and Shettima 

But that proposition stands on another critical one that we must discuss first, namely: no previous presidential candidate in Nigeria did what Tinubu has done. I’m not referring to the devilry of his Muslim-Muslim ticket. Rather, I’m talking about his deliberate decision to pick a long-standing political ally and close associate as his running-mate. None of the past leading presidential candidates behaved in that manner. 

Shettima’s Freudian Slip…

 By Bello Maigari

Senator Kashim Shettima has again amused serious-minded Nigerians, this time, opening up on how his principal in the All Progressives Congress, APC presidential ticket, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu would combine the hospitality of General Sani Abacha and the competence of Muhammadu Buhari as president.

*Shettima and Tinubu 

Speaking last Thursday at the 96th-anniversary celebration of the Yoruba Tennis Club in Ikoyi, Lagos state, the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN quoted him as saying Nigeria needs the “hospitality” of Abacha. For Nigerians unfamiliar with Abacha, a slight recall of some of the worst abuses in human rights are easy to recall.

The extra-judicial killings of Mrs Kudirat Abiola, Alfred Rewane and many others recorded and unrecorded are living testimonies of the hospitality that Shettima wants Nigerians to remember. Shettima’s principal, Tinubu was driven to exile like many other Nigerians who kicked against the military regime’s decision to usurp the mandate given to Chief MKO Abiola.

Peter Obi Caught In The Act

 By Promise Adiele

In Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not To Blame, as King Odewale informs his wife Ojuola that he caught Aderopo red-handed plotting evil against the throne, the reader is aghast with surprise. How could Aderopo, the Obidient and unassuming son of Ojuola plot evil against the throne? In the same manner, the Labour Party presidential flag bearer Mr. Peter Obi has been caught in the act doing something. Plotting evil against the throne? No!!! Come with me let’s find out what he was caught doing. 

*Peter Obi 

So far, events leading to the 2023 general elections in Nigeria indicate a paradigm shift in the country’s political evolution. The blind can see it. Mortar and pestle are aware too. What hitherto seemed impossible or unrealistic has become possible, an undeniable actuality that daily queries every empirical explanation. Suddenly, Nigerian youths have justifiably found their voices with a compelling need to be part of the political process in their country. 

2023 Presidential Election: Can We Get It Right?

 By Chiedu Uche Okoye

Why is Nigeria, a country endowed with humungous human and material resources, still trapped in the cocoon of   economic and technological quagmire and backwardness?  Why has she continued to bring up the rear on the global ladder of countries’ development? The answer to the above question is not far-fetched. The military incursions into our politics had dealt a severe and devastating blow to our democratic growth and national development. And we have not got it right, politically since Nigeria became a sovereign country in 1960.

 

The departing British imperialists laid the foundation for the egregious culture of imposition of national leaders on the populace in Nigeria. They surreptitiously helped Alhaji Tafawa Balewa to become our Prime Minister in 1960. Was Tafawa Balewa better than Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Rt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, who were intellectual giants and political juggernauts? Not surprisingly, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa failed to unite the Peoples of Nigeria and set the country on the path of sustainable economic growth and irreversible technological development.

Who Says Peter Obi Is Not Adequately Prepared?

 By Tai Emeka Obasi 

One of the deep-rooted concerns of many people from the Southeast is that the zone has not really prepared adequately to wrestle power from the rest of Nigeria. Such protagonists of the debate point to MKO Abiola's style that eventually saw him changing the political history of Nigeria, which President Olusegun Obasanjo eventually benefitted from. 

*Peter Obi

Such opinions point convincingly to the fact that it took Abiola over 20 years of philanthropy and effectively proving he was a detribalised Nigerian by investing, employing and assisting Nigerians across zones, tribes and religion.  

The debate concluded that Abiola was so remarkably effective that when he contested for the presidency, he comfortably defeated a Northerner in the general election of June 12, 1993 - something thought impossible before his coming. And even that was achieved via a Muslim-Muslim ticket.  

Good arguments any reasonable mind should concede to. 

However, philanthropy is not the only way of getting prepared for the presidency of Nigeria. And any good strategist rarely repeats a trick. 

Lekki Massacre Begins To Look Like Asaba Massacre

 By Tony Eluemunor

Give it time, and the Lekki Toll-Gate Massacre will assume the nature of the Asaba Massacre. Then, it will have no official mention but will live on in the memories of those directly affected. And like the Asaba Massacre, it could assume a life of its own, and refuse to die whether or not it received the Fed­eral Government’s confirmation.

Last October 10, I wrote in this column: “The Federal troops thun­dered into Asaba on the 5th Octo­ber 1967. The Biafrans had melted away as the immediate command­er, the late Col. Joe Achuzia (a son of Asaba), opted to retreat to Onit­sha as a lorry load of cutlass was all he was given to defend Asaba with. He blew up the Niger Bridge on the 5th. Then, the indiscrimi­nate killing started. It turned hor­rendous on the 6th and became fiendish on the 7th.

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

2019: Is Buhari Deliberately Running To Lose?

By Richard Maduku

There is hardly any good thing that we Africans don’t corrupt. Sometimes, we practise only the negative aspect of almost every good thing. Clocks or watches for instance, are meant to ensure punctuality but in Africa they are used mostly for the opposite. It is called African Time. The Internet is meant for fast communication but in Nigeria many youths have turned it into a farm where they reap what they did not sow. It is called yahoo yahoo. Churches have been so corrupted in Africa especially in Nigeria that our traditional shamans blush with envy at the tricks church leaders of today play in order to exhort money from their gullible members.

*President Muhammadu Buhari 

 Democracy in most African countries has also been badly mangled due to the way most sitting Presidents or Heads of Government in Africa operate. They don’t only harass prominent members of the opposition in their respective countries they also brazenly rig supposedly democratic elections in order to remain in office. This has in turn made winning a re-election by a sitting President to be viewed with utmost suspicion. As a result, whether an election was free and fair, a sitting President conceding defeat was now more acceptable to the world especially to the West. 

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.

Nigeria: Their Tomorrow Will Surely Come!

By Dan Amor

Are Nigerians hopeful of the day after? The collective answer to this rhetorical question is a resounding NO. If Nigerians are no longer hopeful of tomorrow, they deserve pardon. For, never in the history of mankind have a people been so brutalized by the very group of people who are supposed to protect and take care of them. They ought to be pardoned knowing full well that their manifest state of hopelessness has extended beyond disillusionment to a desperate and consuming nihilism. Which is why the only news one hears from Nigeria is soured news: violence, arson, killing, maiming, kidnapping, robbery, corruption, rape.

*Buhari, Obasanjo and Abdusalami

It is sad to note that Nigeria is gradually and steadily degenerating into the abyss. Even in a supposedly democratic dispensation, a sense of freedom, a feeling of an unconditional escape, a readiness for real and absolute change, is still the daydream of the whole citizenry. Everything is in readiness for the unexpected, and the unexpected is not in sight. You cannot possibly conceive what a rabble we look. We straggle along with far less cohesion than a flock of sheep. We are, in fact, even forced to believe that tomorrow will no longer come. Quite a handful of us are simply robots without souls, as we are hopeless because we are conditioned to a state of collective hopelessness.

Nigeria: Apologies For Gen. Sani Abacha

By Dan Amor

​Friday this week indubitably marks the twentieth anniversary of the death of General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s most treacherous tyrant and who ranked with Agathocles and Dionysus I of Sicily, as the most notorious dictators, not only of the age of antiquity but of all times. He died in Abuja on June 8, 1998 as a sitting military dictator. It is true that the degree of cruelty and loathsome human vulgarity that the Abacha era epitomized is already fading into the background due largely to the mundane and short character of the human memory. But his timely exit ought to have been marked by Nigerians just as the United Nations marks the end of the Second World War not only for posterity but also as a thanksgiving to God for extricating mankind from such epoch of human misery.

*Gen Abacha 

Abacha emerged as head of state from the ashes of the June 12 crisis. The General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida military administration had annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election with a clear winner. It was the most placid election ever conducted in the annals of our country. The contest was between Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC) and the billionaire business mogul, Chief MKO Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Abiola was coasting to victory when the Babangida military regime halted the announcement of the election result superintended by the Professor Humfrey Nwosu-led National Electoral Commission. The Federal Government eventually announced the annulment of the result on June 23, 1993. This action triggered a violent protest especially in the South West which led to Babangida stepping aside.

Nigeria: Eighteen Years Of Threatened Democracy

By Alabi Williams

After 18 years of democracy, we do not need to search very far to know how well the journey has fared. The glaring evidence of how troubled it has been is the very fact that we are still discussing the idea of a coup, no matter how embryonic and remote it may have been. That some people still nurse nostalgia for the salvation procurable via coups suggests that this democracy is not offering what it was programmed to deliver. There is sufficient amount of desperation that triggers a search for alternatives. Unfortunately, the one ready alternative people tucked somewhere in their psyche, is the military, with capacity to obliterate the present nonsense and begin afresh. Very tempting.

But many have rushed out to condemn the thought of a coup because of very ugly past experiences. The military has so debased itself that its original messianic capacity has been squandered. At the point it was forced to exit from civil governance, the military had transformed into a rampaging occupation force, abusing rights of citizens and stealing their money.