Why Tinubu Is Cocky

 By Ochereome Nnanna

Of the three main political parties, only the All Progressives Congress, APC, has not openly flagged off its presidential campaign. The People’s Democratic Party, PDP, was the first to go in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, while the Labour Party, LP, got going in Lafia, Nasarawa State.

*Tinubu

LP’s Peter Obi is actively and openly marketing himself and soliciting for votes; so is PDP’s Atiku Abubakar, but with much less energy. Tinubu, on the other hand, has been very dodgy. He has only appeared once at a public forum whose atmospherics his party controlled to accommodate his physical and mental failings.

Even when he invited the who-is-who in the business world, he merely read from a prepared speech and could not take questions from his audience. He left his hangers-on to answer them for him while he became part of the audience. Even before becoming president, Tinubu is already showing he will rule by proxy or cabal. He will not lead from the front. 

President Buhari: A ‘Messiah’s Loss Of Appeal

By Godwin Ogla

We are not all endowed with the peculiar gift of clairvoyance like Nostradamus, the famed fourteenth century astrologer -cum- physician, who arguably foretold great happenings and events that would later shape centuries he could only imagine. But when an audacious attempt is made to do a post-mortem of a presidency that is yet to round off its first tenure, then, one begins to wonder whether such a presidency has crossed the Rubicon on policies with disastrous effects from which returning may be impossible or perhaps, difficult. Who would expect something good from an administration whose actions and inactions conjure pictures of hopelessness even in its final days?

*President Buhari 

There is a limit to the propaganda machinery any government in the world can set in motion to inveigle her citizenry into giving it their unalloyed support, if there is great gulf between actual falsehood and reality. It is only a matter of time before the propaganda messages being deployed to influence public opinions, metamorphosed into an uncomfortable jarring sound that must be turned off to prevent the people from losing their sanity. The once fervent converts have now taken a deep dive into the rivers of apostasy because in vain, have they laboured for the religion of change. 

President Buhari And The ‘Approved’ $1b For Arms Purchase

By Chris Akiri

About a fortnight ago, the head of state, President Muhammadu Buhari, summoned all the security chiefs in the land to Aso Rock villa, where he gleefully, categorically and unambiguously announced to them that he had approved the sum of US $1 billion for the procurement of military hardware to strengthen the armed forces to prosecute the war against insurgency in the North-East more effectively. 

This announcement, which was made in the full glare of TV cameras and broadcast nationwide, elicited a deafening and rapturous applause from the security chiefs present.

 
Responding on behalf of all the security agencies, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-General Tukur Buratai, who was obviously beside himself with joy, expressed his unstinting gratitude to the President, assuring the latter that the money would be spent judiciously for the purpose for which it was approved. 

As far as the President and the security chiefs were concerned, it was “c’est fini”, a fait accompli: the next step was the chiefs to begin to withdraw the approved money from the Excess Crude Account (ECA), a controversial creation of the former, much maligned ruling party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)!  

But then a cacophony of criticisms and unabating furore erupted everywhere in the country about the unilateral, unconstitutional and illegal approval by the President of such a humongous amount, any amount, of money, not in an Appropriation or Supplementary Appropriation Act. 

Dr. Alex Ekwueme: A Tribute

By Uzodinma Nwala

The day was Thursday, August 13, 1998. The setting was a meeting of the nascent People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which just metamorphosed from the activist group, G-34, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city. The agenda was to decide on the policy of the emergent party, especially power-sharing and rotation of the presidency.

*Dr. Alex Ekwueme

The buildup started much earlier with Dr. Nelson Mandela of South Africa’s second visit to Nigeria to meet with Gen. Abacha, after his 1995 release from prison. He was here to advise Gen Abacha to loosen his tight grip on Nigeria and allow the air of democratic freedom to flow in. His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, had earlier undertaken a similar mission, albeit with no success. Mandela had specifically called for the release of the likes of Chief M. K. O. Abiola, General Olusegun Obasanjo, General Shehu Yar’Adua, Ken Saro Wiwa and his Ogoni colleagues. But, Abacha was adamant on Nelson Mandela’s entreaties. Even though his trip to Nigeria produced negative results, Dr. Nelson Mandela, the world-acclaimed doyen of revolutionary struggles in Africa, was prepared. He did not relent, he had a Plan B. Mandela turned his attention to Nigeria’s pro-democracy groups, asking them to come to the rescue. He invited them to South Africa, hoping to inspire them to take to militant opposition. 

Rivers Rerun And INEC’s Impartiality

By Robert Obioha

IT is good and desirable that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will tomorrow conduct the remaining Federal and State legislative elections in Rivers State. Nigerians and indeed the people of Rivers State will heave a sigh of relief that at last this election will be concluded. Its conclusion will mean that they will be fully represented in the National and State Assembly.

It will also mean that Rivers State will have a say in decisions of the highest law-making organs in the country. For this exercise to be violence-free, fair and credible, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has deployed 20,000 police personnel, 3 helicopters and 20 gunboats. It is hoped that with this massive deployment of policemen, the issue of insecurity and electoral violence should not arise.

The electoral agency has deployed about 10,294 staff to ensure a seamless exercise and conclusion of the rereun elections in Rivers State. Therefore, there is no doubt that all is now set for tomorrow’s exercise, expected to conclude the poll which began last year. For months, the people of Rivers State had been denied representation in the National and State Assembly.

Now that INEC is set to complete the exercise and give them full representation in the National and State Assembly, all hands must be on deck to ensure that it is successful this time around. All the grandstanding by certain political actors concerning the exercise is unnecessary. Politicians and their supporters should be part of the effort to make the exercise succeed.

They should refrain from incendiary comments capable of stoking violence in the state. All the security agents must maintain absolute political neutrality in the elections. Their job is to provide adequate security in the state before, during and after the polls. They should not aid any party to rig the election or to gain any political advantage.

Dasuki, Tompolo, Just Join APC

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

Shortly after Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s jolting victory in the 2015 presidential election, some politicians obviously realised their mistake of not disavowing the then President Goodluck Jonathan and his ill-starred party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). But all hope was not really lost – they attempted to salvage their wrecked political fortunes. Some immediately denigrated their political parties and declared their allegiance to the winning party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

*Dasuki

Others were subtle. They did not want to be seen as brazen opportunists who were ready to sound the death knell of the party on whose platform they had attained socio-economic and political leverage. Thus, they declared their retirement from partisan politics. It began with former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s reported dramatic tearing of his PDP’s membership card. However, the former president was recently quoted as insisting that he never tore his card. Obasanjo’s example of retiring from politics was quickly followed by a former Chairman of the PDP, Bamanga Tukur, the political godfather of former President Jonathan, Edwin Clark and others. The only difference between these and Obasanjo was that they were never involved in the razzmatazz of tearing their party membership cards while quitting active politics.

We need not interrogate the real motive of the afore-said politicians who chose to quit partisan politics. Again, we need not reckon with the fact that Obasanjo’s action appeared to have smacked of ingratitude for abandoning the same political party on whose back he held the presidency for eight years. Let’s accept that their exit from the political space was necessitated by old age – they were only bowing out for the younger generation to take over.

But now, it is clear that self-survival is the leitmotif of the current trajectory of politicians abandoning their parties. They do not leave their parties to channel their energies elsewhere; they are still actively involved in politics and their next destination is the APC. Clearly, when the carapace of the self-serving excuse that they are joining the APC to better serve their people is broken, we are left with the discovery that these are politicians who are only fleeing to the ruling party as a refuge from probe for corruption.

Remember, Buhari has declared that no member of his cabinet is corrupt. This was what informed his clearing of his Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai of the charge of corruption for unaccountably owning assets in Dubai. This is also why despite the accused judges’ allegation that Rotimi Amaechi tried to use them to pervert justice, he is not being probed. In fact, just last week, a robust defence of Amaechi came from the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay. According to Sagay, Amaechi should not resign since the charges by the judges were not only baseless, they are targeted at depriving the Buhari government of the great contributions of Amaechi to good governance.