Building Bridges For A New Nigeria

By Mike Ozekhome

This topic, “Building Bridges for a New Nigeria,” admits two things, namely, that Nigeria has failed or is failing; and there was an old Nigeria which was divided and that there is the need for a new Nigeria whose goal is to improve relationships among people who are very different, or do not like each other. So, this topic is about how to foster good relations among Nigerians. 

*Ozekhome 

Ethnicity, language and religion have divided and destroyed Nigeria. They drive our politics. Some Nigerians will vote for a thief provided he is from their tribe. Ethnicity, language and religion promote disunity, unhealthy rivalry and disenchantment. In this presentation, I will examine and probe the problems, and discern how bridge-building is the way forward for this nation. I particularly like the goals of Nzuko Umunna (NU), which is a general platform for creating effective management of Igbo professionals, both at home and in the diaspora, uniting and bridging the gap between the various Igbo groups; and promoting cooperation, peace and good neighbourliness between Igbos and other ethnic groups in Nigeria.

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.

Me Celebrate Nigeria At 60? Sorry, No!!

By Mike Ozekhome

Many Nigerians at home and abroad, including elder statesmen and women, rights activists, NGOs, journalists and social media czars, have severally called upon me in the last one week to comment on my personal feelings about “Nigeria at 60”. I had hitherto resisted this invitation, lest I painted a horrifically gloomy picture of despondency. However, because the questions will not stop cascading in like a torrential rainfall, I am now compelled to share my honest, but very modest, thoughts about Nigeria at 60. I am extremely sad about Nigeria at 60.

                                             *Chief Ozekhome

Very, very sad indeed. Surely, a 60-year and above old man or woman, is already a senior citizen; a grandfather, or grandmother. I am one. This means such a man or woman has grown; or is at least, presumed to have grown, in maturity and development. But, I am sad that Nigeria, “our own dear native land” (words taken from the beautiful lyrics of the unfortunately discarded old National Anthem), has neither developed nor matured. 

Stop These Savage Killings In Adamawa!

By Mike Ozekhome

The state of Adamawa lies in the northeastern part of Nigeria, with its capital at Yola. It was carved out in 1991 from part of Gongola State, with four administrative divisions, namely Adamawa, Ganye, Mubi and Numan. It is one of the largest states in Nigeria and occupies about 36,917 square kilometres.

The great people of Adamawa State are mostly renowned as farmers. This is reflected in their two notable vegetational zones, sub-Sudan and northern Guinea Savannah zone. Their cash crops are cotton and groundnuts, while food crops include maize, yam, cassava, guinea corn, millet and rice. The village communities living on the banks of the rivers engage in fishing, while the Fulani are cattle rearers. Little wonder that all these have been encapsulated in the slogan of the state, ‘The Land of Beauty.” A visit to the state will not be complete without going to Mubi. Mubi’s clement weather is scintilatingly accommodating for human habitation and Nuhu Auwalu Wakili’s Palace will keep your memory of the state at all times.

Of Rats And Rodents Driving President Buhari Out Of Office

By Mike Ozekhome

It is a very shameful and disgraceful statement that emanated from the presidency to the effect that President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB), after a whole 105 days abroad on medical grounds, cannot work from his office because of rats and rodents. So, a whole Julius Berger, the German construction giant has to be called in to drive them away and repaint the office! This statement further derides and shames Nigeria as a country.

Why didn't the same or similar rodents pursue Olusegun Obasanjo, Umar Musa Yar'adua or Goodluck Jonathan during their presidency? For truth, there is another mini office at the villa quite different from the official residence and main office. Let PMB work from there.

Let's see our president working, not through still photo shopping. For how long will this government take the Nigerian citizens for a ride and for robots ? Who told the image makers we are as brainless as they are? Don't they know that lies have expiry date and that propaganda cannot substitute for image making?

The Discharge Of Justice Niyi Ademola, Wife And Joe Agi SAN: Matters Arising

By Mike Ozekhome

Justice Adeniyi Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court, Abuja, has just been discharged by an FCT High Court, Abuja, coram Justice Jude Okeke, after a no case submission by his defence counsel. His wife, Olubowale and Mr. Joe Agi,SAN, with whom he was tried, were equally discharged.

Justice Ademola and wife

This is an obviously laughable and anti-climax after all the "gra gra", grand standing, posturing, rabble rousing and wanton degradation of the judiciary by their transducers.

This discharge, after the horrific humiliation of Justice Ademola, whose home was savagely invaded by rampaging, masked and hooded DSS operatives, between the ungodly and unholy hours of 12 mid night to 5am! Windows and doors were bestially broken down and the Judge whisked off like a common criminal inside a pick up van.

We were told to shut up, not to complain, because the government was fighting the monster called corruption. Never mind that the inner corridors and dark recesses of the same government reek and stink of putrid and horrendous corruption, with the very government rising up on each occasion to defend its corrupt officials.

A case of wanting to sweep your neighbour's house clean when your own house is dirty and stinking. A clear case of attempting to remove the mole from your neighbour's eye when a log is embedded in yours. Justice Ademola was forced to abdicate his judicial functions.

When Buhari Shamed His Megaphones

By Mike Ozehkome

It  was Izaak Walton (1593 – 1683), an English writer, who once said: “Look to your health: And if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy.”

Health, it is said, is wealth. And anyone who has been ill from mere headache can relate to the travails of Mr. President in recent weeks.

*Buhari 

When the president transmitted his letter to the Senate for vacation to the United Kingdom, little did we know that the subsequent events to follow would raise much ruckus and fuss within the polity.  However, for a minute, let us all sheath our ideological swords and thank God Almighty for the president, his family and Nigerians at large, for  making it possible for the president to return alive; for it could have been, indeed,  worse.  God forbid!

Nigeria is sui generis-on a class of its own. There is hardly any country in the world that is akin to Nigeria. Our ideologies, credos, languages are multifaceted and multidimensional. Truth be told, it would be a Herculean task for any leader to placate the various interests and tendencies of this nation in one breath. This has been the major challenges of previous leaders in this nation, whether military or civilian, including Abacha, Gowon, Murtala, Shagari, Shonekan, Abdulsalam, Yardua, GEJ, OBJ, IBB, et al, however well-intentioned they might have been.

What makes a Southerner happy to be a Nigerian is quite different from what makes a Northerner happy to be a Nigerian. Sometimes, this is caused by ignorance, sometimes by the weakness of the human mind, which loves to categorise. Other times, because of the various vested interests by different groups. One fact is indisputable; uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, particularly in Nigeria, a country with about 388 ethnic groups that speak over 350 languages (Onign Otite); some say over 500.

Sometimes, we forget that our leaders are also human, with their weaknesses, foibles, strengths, fears and anxieties. It would be unfair to gloss over some great things that President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) has done for Nigeria. His has been that of service to his nation, since his youth, when he was born of a Fulani family on 17th December, 1942, in Daura, Katsina State, to his father, Adamu, and mother, Zulaihat. He is the twenty-third child of his father. Buhari was raised by his mother, after his father died when he was about four years old.

Buhari: Address Nigerians On Skype Now!

By Chief Mike Ozekhome

Legal And Political Implications Of President Buhari’s Stay Abroad

*Buhari 

On the political implications of President Muhammadu Buhari extending his medical/holiday period abroad, it keeps the nation on ethno-religious tenterhooks, dangerous precipice, uncomfortable tension, anxiety and a dark pall on government and governance. It reminds one of the dark better forgotten days of the late President Umar Musa Yar’dua brouhaha when what late Dora Akunyilu described as “the cabal” unceremoniously seized the reins of government and held the nation to unspeakable ransom.

God forbid a repetition of history. God forbid us behaving like the Bourbons of European history who learnt nothing and forgot nothing.

On the legal implications, it is constitutionally provided that once the president transmits his absence or inability to act to the National Assembly, then the Vice president acts in his place.

Mrs. Bridget Agbahime’s Horrific Butchery(1)

By Mike Ozekhome

Introduction
Few weeks ago, 74-year-old Mrs. Bridget Agbaheme was brutally murdered in cold blood. She had her head gruesomely decapitated from her body in Kano. Her alleged ‘blasphemy’ was that she objected to an ablution by some muslim youths, right in front of her shop, at Kofar Wambai market, Kano, in broad daylight. As Nigerians join their brothers and sisters in Islam all over the globe to observe the holy month of Ramadan, the question can now be asked: Is violence the true tenet of Islamic religion? Does God or Allah need to be defended, or protected by us, mere mortals, who are his creation?
Twenty-four-year-old trader, Methodus Chimaeje Emmanuel, was also killed in Pandogari, Rafi LGA, Niger State, for alleged blasphemy. In Kakuri, Kaduna, 41-year-old carpenter, Francis Emmanuel, was savagely attacked for not participating in the ongoing Ramadan fast. Recall also that Gideon Akaluka, a young Igbo trader, was, in 1995, hideously and horrendously beheaded in the same Kano, allegedly for desecrating the holy Quran. His decapitated head was grisly paraded about on Kano streets, on a pole. I cannot remember the perpetrators, who were initially arrested ever being prosecuted.

*Ozekhome

Nigeria Is Multi-Religious, Not Secular
Nigeria’s Constitution abolishes theocracy. Some erroneously call this secularity. No. Nigeria is not secular, agnostic, atheistic or irreligious. Rather, Nigeria is multi-religious. Section 10 of the Constitution laconically provides: “The government of the Federation or a state shall not adopt any religion as state religion”. Section 15, inter alia, prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion. Section 38 allows freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to change one’s religion or beliefs. When Sections 10 and 15, therefore, specifically mention “religion”, it means we are a religious country, not a secular one. Indeed, the preamble to the 1999 Constitution specifically says Nigerians have “firmly and solemnly resolved to live in unity and harmony, as one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation under God…” Our National Pledge ends with “so, help me God”. The penal code that operates in the northern part of the country is influenced by Islamic principles, while the criminal code that operates in the southern part of Nigeria is greatly influenced by the common law and Christian religion. So, Nigeria, whilst not adopting a particular religion, as state religion, is neither secular, atheist, nor irreligious. Rather, it is a multi-religious country that believes in God Almighty. However, blasphemy, even if any, was committed, in the above episodes, is only a demeanour under Section 204 of the Criminal Code that is punishable with two years imprisonment, not death.

Wrong Interpretation Of The Holy Books
Most fanatics and fundamentalists interpret the Holy Bible and Holy Quran wrongly. For example, they erroneously rely on the Quran, 8:12, which states: “When your Lord revealed to the angels, I am with you. Therefore, make from those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore, strike off their heads, and strike off every fingertip of them.”
On the surface, if taken literally, this would appear to mean that the Quran expects violence to be a divine command intended to inspire terror. No. The explanation from knowledgeable Islamic clerics is that the background to this command was within an actual war situation, dealing with the spoils of war, at the battle of Badr in the year 624. It is just as unfair, therefore, to generalise from this verse and say that the Islamic Religion encourages or condones killings, as it is unfair for critics of Christianity to say that the latter is a violent religion, merely because Christ had said, ‘I have not come to bring peace but a sword’. But, everyone understands that Christ did not mean this literally, or willed that the statement He made be taken out of context. He was merely speaking metaphorically.
In the Holy Quran, 5:32, we are warned: “Whoever kills a person (unjustly)… it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he has saved all mankind”. In the Holy Bible, we are admonished “thou shall not kill” (Exodus 20:13). The consequence of violating this sacred injunction is that, “he that killeth with this sword must be killed with a sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints” (Rev. 13:10).

June 12, Not May 29, Is Nigeria’s ‘Democracy Day’

By Mike Ozekhome

On Sunday, June 12, 2016, leading lights in the human rights and pro-democracy movement in Nigeria, gathered at the late M.K.O. Abiola’s house, to mark “June 12”, 23 years after this talismanic, watershed and cornerstone of a people’s election. I was one of them. We paid tribute and sang solidarity songs. We x-rayed the state of the nation. We laid wreath at his tomb. We did not forget his lovely wife, Kudirat, who was martyred with him. We prayed by her graveside. An amazon that carried aloft the liberation torchlight after her husband’s incarceration in military dungeon, she epitomised women’s potency, fervour  and ardour.

June 12 is very stubborn. It is simply indestructible, ineradicable, indelible, imperishable and ineffaceable. It sticks out like a badge of honour, the compass of a beleaguered nation. It cannot be wished away. Never. Aside from October 1, when Nigeria had her flag independence, June 12 remains the most important date in her annals.

Nigeria and June 12 are like Siamese twins. The snail and the shell. They are inseparable.  Like six and half a dozen. Like Hamlet and the Prince of Denmark. You cannot discuss May 29 without its forebear and progenitor, June 12. To attempt that is comical, droll chucklesome, even bizarre and freakish. June 12 is not just a Gregorian calendar date. It is Nigeria’s authentic democracy day. That was when genuine democracy berthed in Nigeria. Nigerians had trooped to the polls to vote for Abiola. On June 12, 1993, Nigeria stood still. Nigerians became oblivious to religious sensibilities and ethnic nuances. They did not care that Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, Bashorun and Aare Onakanfo of Yoruba land, was a Moslem who was running with another Moslem, Alhaji Babagana Kingibe. The gods and goddesses of ethnicity, tribalism and religious bigotry were brutally murdered and interred.

The apparitions of gender, culture and class discrimination, were sent back to their graves. Abiola, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, squarely won the election under Babangida’s option A4. He trounced his challenger, Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC). He had campaigned with “Hope 1993” (a message of possibilities later adopted by Obama in 2008). His was “Farewell to Poverty” manifesto. Both resonated well with Nigerians. Abiola, who had joined politics at 19 under NCNC, in 1959, had used his stupendous wealth to water the ground and build bridges of unity, understanding and acceptability across the length and breadth of Nigeria. He had Concord newspaper and airline to help propel his ambition. He regarded money as nothing but manure with which, like plants, human beings are nurtured. Abiola had defeated Bashir Tofa, even in his Gyadi-Gyadi Ward, Kano.

Buhari’s Uninspiring Democracy Day Speech

By Mike Ozekhome

I carefully listened to and read President Buhari’s Democracy Day Speech. I must confess that I felt quite hollow after it all. He lost a golden opportunity to engage Nigerians to buy into his change agenda. The speech did not give the much needed hope, did not fire up ebbing nationalistic and patriotic embers in Nigerians, and did not ignite the drooping and sagging dreams of Nigerians for a better tomorrow, with nerve, verve, éclat, gusto, zest and vivacity. It was bland, colourless, full of sound and fury.

*Buhari and his wife, Aisha 

By the way, I do not believe May 29 should be Nigeria’s Democracy Day. I’ve argued this over the years. It should be June 12. That was the day real democracy berthed in Nigeria.  For another day.

PMB’s speech, rather than being engaging, pacific, placatory and conciliatory, from the father of the nation to his hapless children, was bellicose, belligerent, militant, combative and simply pugnacious. I blame his speech writer for this, for woefully failing to capture, or mirror the angry and disillusioned mood of the nation, to Mr President. The speech accordingly lacked colour, panache, assurance, animation, elan and vitality.

The speech failed to address the multifanous problems, besetting Nigeria and government’s deliberate efforts at redressing them. It dwelt too much on damage assessment of the past, rather than the  panacea, the present and the future. It failed Albert Einstein’s theory that “we cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”. John Burroughs, it was, who said that “a man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else”.  PMB’s Federal Executive Council is now derisively called “Federal Excuses Council”. The speech blamed everyone else, but the government.

I hereby plead most earnestly with Niger Delta Avengers to drop their arms and come to the negotiating table with the government. Blowing up pipelines will compound, not only Nigeria’s socio-economic woes, but theirs, as well. You do not cut your nose to spite your face. But, PMB did not help matters. He threatened and talked tough. He could easily have demobilised them with assuaging and soothing words. Kind, persuasive and tranquilising words are deadlier than any armada of military force. The speech did not create for Nigeria an anti-corruption template, which seeks to extirpate it from the very root, rather than the present fight, which is merely superficially predicated on loot recovery alone. We are treating a dangerous ailment of cancer with drugs meant for skin eczema. Fighting corruption must have a template, which deals with a total re-orientation of our debased national psyche and value system from primitive acquisition, to honour, character and dignity.

Buhari, Please, Reverse This Anti-People Fuel Increase Immediately

By Mike Ozekhome

The recent increase in the price of fuel from N86 to N145 is the most incensate, unsympathetic and anti-people decision the PMB government has yet taken in its flip-flop one year of clueless and directionless govt. At a time Nigerians are already groaning under a grotesque over 500% increase in prices of ordinary consumables with the miserly non living wage of N18,000.00 unaltered, it is inconceivable that the government will add to the pains, anguish, pangs and sufferings of ordinary Nigerians whose only crime is that they “voted” for “change”.

*Buhari 

This government has indecently reversed all its promises to the Nigerian people, treating them as inconsequential nonentities in its governance index. It is not about whether there are advantages in the increase. It is simply about honour, dignity and integrity in fulfilling election promises, which constitute a pact, pactum sunt servanda (agreements must be respected) with the Nigerian people.

It is commonsensical that a fall in the international price of crude oil should only lead to a further fall in the prices of PMS in Nigeria. No one needs to be an acclaimed economist to know thus simple truism. But, the Buhari government treats Nigerians with levity and disdain, as if they do not matter in its governance template and index. The already overburdened masses, who are groaning under excruciating economic woes are again told to go to hell.

Genocidal Actions By Successive Nigerian Governments

By Mike Ozekhome

Genocide In The Creeks

We continue today, government-driven acts of genocide across Nigeria, over the years.

The Setting
It was a hot afternoon at the Palace in Oporoza, Gbaramatu Kingdom, Delta State. Dateline: May 14, 2009. The kingdom is of Ijaw (Izon) nation that contributes nearly 70 per cent to the nation’s economy. It is also the 4th largest ethnic group in Nigeria, after the Hausas/Fulanis, Igbos and Yorubas, spread across Bayelsa (a whole state), Rivers, Edo, Delta, Ondo and Cross River states. The Oporoza community was in a festive mood, for the Amaseikumor festival, with influx of hundreds of guests into the community, to partake of the presentation of the staff of office to the king, the Pere of Gbaramatu Kingdom, HRM, Ogie III. It also marked his one year anniversary on the throne. It was about the same time that nearby city of Warri was to be inspected by FIFA delegates, towards considering Nigeria’s hosting of the 2009, under 17 World Cup. Umaru Yar’Adua was president. Air Marshall Paul Dike was Chief of Defence Staff.

Suddenly, three low flying helicopters emerged from the serene skies. The people gawked, awed, clapped, salivated, believing erroneously the helicopters bore dignitaries to add to the glamour, razzmatazz and panache of the royal ceremony. But they were wrong, dead wrong. The helicopters were actually harbingers of death; deadly gunboats, deployed by the Joint Task Force (as ordered by then President Umar Yar’Adua), to mow down Gabaramatu Kingdom. The kingdom came under a hale of bombs, the Palace inclusive. Two naval warships identified as “NNS Obula” and “NNS Nwanba”, 14 gunboats and four Air Force helicopter gunships completed the awesome armada of the JTF codenamed “Operation Restore Hope.” About 3, 000 troops were involved in this genocidal warfare that targeted the Ijaw enclave that housed the dreaded “Camp 5” and “Iroko Camp.”

Ironically, one of the villages destroyed, Oporoza, had hosted the crew who made the movie, “Sweet crude.” But the crude was now sour.

 Genesis Of The Crisis
The Niger Delta is buried in the creeks. Fragile, swampy and neglected by successive governments after the discovery of oil at Oloibiri in 1956, the people felt short changed. Where they asked for fish, they were given stones. When they asked for bread, they were given bullets. Like in the ancient Mariner, they have “water, water everywhere, but none fit enough to drink.” They defecate in still, spirogyra-infested ponds from which they also drink. The perennial gas flaring leaves cancerous skins and diseases. Aquatic and agrarian life is completely destroyed. The black gold, rather than be a blessing, has thus become a curse. There are no roads, hospitals, schools, infrastructure. No nothing! The people live in pains, pangs, sweat, blood, exploitation and crude marginalization.

Rampaging Fulani Herdsmen: Time To Tame The Monster

Mike Ozekhome

When I was growing up in the sixties and seventies, we saw Fulani herdsmen, herding their cattle along the then desolate Agenebode-Auchi Road. The cattle defecated on the road, in a trail that stretched across kilometres. We would clap, dance and welcome them with songs of “malu, kova, daba daba kova, ikpisa yeghe the lakhia, edu nukpotha mho abo, ne the gbe la kpu kpu” (cows with hooves, being led by idle old men, who wield sticks with which they flogged them ceaselessly).

The herdsmen, sticks across their shoulders, large straw Panama hats on their heads, a pitcher of water, visible amulets on their necks and arms, would simply smile at our innocence, and pass by. The relationship between them and the natives was tranquil and cordial. These were those good old days. Not anymore. Times have since changed.

The modern herdsmen

The modern Fulani herdsmen constitute a bunch of rampaging, combatant armies, wielding modern day sophisticated weapons. They invade whole communities as they did Agatu, take them hostage, maim, kill, set their houses ablaze, rape their women and daughters and shoot down the youth, escaping the inferno of homes they set ablaze. In their orgy of violence, armed robbery, carnage and bloodbath, comparable only to the invidious and incidious Boko Haram insurgency, they kidnap and murder in cold blood, traditional rulers, women, men and even clerics. No one is safe. No farmer escapes their unprovoked wrath.

They leave their host communities dehumanised and traumatised in pains, pangs, sweat, tears, sorrow and blood. Indigenes become strangers on their land, sleeping in the forests, or where they still do, in their communities, with one eye open. Farmers are wholly displaced from their ancestral lands. From Agatu to Agenebode, Ubulu Uku to Okada, Lokoja to Ondo, Mbaise to Oyo, it is the same story of palpable neo-colonialism and recolonisation, by a new set of acolytes of powerful mechantilistic cattle czars. The traditional ruler of Ubulu Uku was killed in cold blood, in most horrendous and horrific circumstances. Sophisticated weapons are freely brandished and used, perhaps, the only set of Nigerians that can wield weapons openly and brazenly, without sanctions or repercussions. Elder statesman, Chief Olu Falae, was kidnapped, right in his own farm, by these terrorists. His family paid ransom for his release. The herdsmen have only recently just descended on the same farm and killed Falae’s security guard. The septuagenarian nationalist cried aloud that he did not know what they want with him.

These few examples are only known because of their high profile nature. Thousands of Nigerians undergo this new orgy of violence every day, without mention.

The incubation of national explosion by the  National Assembly