Nigeria: Time To Remove Muhammadu Buhari From Power

By Remi Oyeyemi

"There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction." – John F. Kennedy

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." – Benjamin Franklin

*Buhari 

Dateline - February 11, 2018. As I woke up this morning, I got a message from one of our revere leaders in Yorùbá Nation. The message, not something one would have expected on a Sunday morning, but nevertheless, I got this message. I was confident that this elderly person, the way I have known him, must have considered the timing and its propriety before sending the message.

He must have been very enraged. His being a father and grandfather must have been egregiously violated. The milk of human kindness flowing in his veins must have belched with a high degree of contamination. His marrows of humaneness must have erupted with disgust and unbelief. He must have been excessively repulsed to the point that he felt the message must get to me. And quickly too.

Can The Break Up Of Nigeria Be Peaceful?

By Remi Oyeyemi

The above question is necessary to wake us up on and to the realities confronting us. The need to provide answers to it is very pertinent.

In my view, what is needed to save Nigeria is intractably antagonistic to Nigeria's NATURE and CHARACTER as a STATE.

What are needed to save Nigeria are basic and simple but yet humongously overwhelming for and to our WILL, if we have it at all. I have suggested and still suggest that it is important that we allow individual ethnic nationalities to have greater controls on their economic, social and political issues. A replication of the EUROPEAN UNION model could work to save Nigeria. But such a beautiful idea would not be allowed by those who want to dominate, enslave and exploit others.

Nigerians, Time To Hold Our Leaders Accountable

By Remi Oyeyemi

Like millions of other Nigerians, one is very concerned. One is concerned about the subsisting chaos in our social order. One is concerned about the turbulence in our economic condition. One is worried about the glorification of charlatanism in our political landscape. One is disturbed about the morass of our moral mill. The absence of integrity, the discountenance of dignity, the disrespect of reason and disregard of facts all combine to give one serious concerns about Nigeria.

*Remi Oyeyemi

When one traverses the social media, rummages through the newspapers, and listens to real life experiences of Nigerians, one could feel the concern of Nigerians. From discussions with variety of Nigerians, irrespective of the social, economic and political status, the concerns have been evident. One could fathom that Nigerians wanted solutions to the manifesting myriad of problems. One would come away with the fact that Nigerian are fed up with the situation in the country.

But what is not very clear is how ready are Nigerians of all hue and clime to get off the sidelines and be involved in changing the course of their destinies. Their attitude of believing in a messiah to come around and liberate them might not be the best one given what we have witnessed so far. It is becoming increasingly self evident that Nigerians have to stand up and take control of their destiny by getting off the sidelines.

It is one’s belief that time is now for all of us to get off our laptops, drop our pens, stop complaining and get off the sidelines. It is time for all of us to accept the fact that we are the captains of our souls. Not all of us can be president. Not all of us can be senators. Not all of us can be governors. But certainly all of us can be active participants in the political process. Through our participation we would all be able to work together to forge a new destiny for our country, forge a new country for our children and for the posterity.

“Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved”  – William Jennings Bryan  

With our active participation as individuals or as members of groups we would be able to decide on the direction of the country and the type of policies that have to be in place. We would be able to hold our leaders accountable. If someone is a local government chairman and he is not able to declare his assets, we would be able to hold him accountable or force him to leave office.  Any councilor that lives beyond his means could be held accountable. House of Assembly members would be forced to be accountable on their stewardship.

The Senators who collect constituency allowance and spend such on their girlfriends would be made to answer questions. Those who become commissioners and live beyond their incomes would have some explanations to do. The political party operatives would not be allowed to get away with deceit and deception. Party platforms and promises would be seriously adhered to. Presidents or governors would not get into the office and deny their promises made during campaigns.  All these could be possible only through mass participation in the political process.

Mass participation is the heart and soul of democracy. It is the life blood of freedom. It is the best check and balance for governance. Mass participation is the best form of holding elected officers accountable. If our elected officers know that we are all paying attention, they would think twice before they steal our commonwealth or engage in any other form of corruption. If our elected officers know that we are informed and very much aware of the way the process works, they would not be able to hold us to ransom or deceive us.

Buhari's Second Coming: A Tragic Mistake!

By Remi Oyeyemi

For those who have followed my writings, it is not news to them that I have no iota of confidence in President Muhammadu Buhari either as a candidate or as President of Nigeria. It is not news that it has been difficult for me to believe that anything good could come out of Buhari’s Nazareth. My convictions are based on his trajectory on the political landscape of Nigeria. A trajectory of corruption, incompetence, deceit, nepotism and a genre of noxious tribalism are the contaminating clouds characterizing his contoured career.

*Buhari 

But for someone like me, who is an avowed unbeliever in Buhari, it is nothing personal. It is all about the future of my children who despite having several opportunities for being Americans have fallen in love first of all with Ijeshaland, the Yoruba Nation, the unfortunate country called Nigeria and the continent Africa. That is the order of priority in which I have tried to educate them and they understand, or rather I did everything to make them understand, why it has to be that way.
 
So, because this is about the future of my children, I have prayed ceaselessly and hoped untiringly that President Buhari would disappoint me in his second coming. This is despite the fact that I did not think he would be able to rescue Nigeria. This is despite the fact that I know his second coming is a tragic mistake. This is despite the fact that I know that Buhari is a born-again corrupt military man turned politician dressed in the borrowed robe of integrity. This is despite the fact that I know that he does not believe in Nigeria.
 
But somehow, you just hope that you are wrong. You hope that the man could have been softened by age and experience. You just hope that at his age he would realize the futility of vanity and would seek to ingrain his name in immortality by doing the right thing and disappoint doubting Thomases like me. You hope that some of your friends and colleagues who bought into him hook, line and sinker would come around to wipe it in your face “we told you so.”
 
It would have been beautiful and worth it if I found myself in that position. It would not have mattered if President Buhari had disappointed me and performed very well. I would have appreciated it. I would have praised him. I would have been converted to one of his hailers. I would have been shameless about making a u-turn. All would have been worth it for the sake of the future of my children.
 
But rather than disappoint me, President Buhari further confirmed why I have been against him in the first instance. He cemented his reputation that made Nigerian electorate reject him three times as a congenital failure and incorrigibly untruthful. He continues to prove that he is not worthy of even the fake integrity with which he has been invested by the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s propaganda machine that ensured his election as Nigeria’s president.

Buhari: The Obstacle To War On Corruption

By Remi Oyeyemi

“…. whoever that is indicted of corruption between 1999 to the time of swearing-in, would be pardoned”
– President Mohammadu Buhari on March 11, 2015 at a Campaign rally in Kaduna
 
“The right thing to do is to probe at least the administrations from 1966 when this level of corruption and criminal wastefulness of resources started…”
– Balarabe Musa, Former Governor of Kaduna State
 in The Sun  of July 25, 2015.
 

Buhari 

It is becoming increasingly clear that President Mohammadu Buhari really has no interest in fighting corruption. It is embarrassing and disappointing that President Buhari conveys confusion and contused confidence about the war on corruption. The defeat of corruption is the greatest desire of Nigerians. It is why Nigerians felt that he should be given a chance after rejecting him at the polls three previous times. So far, President Buhari has not been able to come up with any clear cut policy, rules and guidelines as to how he plans to fight corruption.
 
In fact, evidentially, the most challenging obstacle to fighting corruption in this present dispensation is President Buhari himself. President Buhari has raised obstacles to the war on corruption so that it would be impossible to prosecute. This would help him and his friends could keep their loots. Any hope that corruption would be decimated if not brought to its knees by President Buhari is not just dissipating, it is fast disappearing. One more time, Nigerians have been taken for a ride.
 
In a document titled “I Pledge to Nigeria” released during the campaign, President Buhari made the following promise to Nigerians:
 
“I pledge to publicly declare my assets and liabilities, encourage all my appointees to publicly declare their assets and liabilities as a precondition for appointment. …. I pledge, as Commander-in Chief, to lead from the front and not behind in the comfort and security  of Aso Rock, to boost the morale of fighting forces and the generality of all Nigerians.”
 
 So far, President Buhari has failed to fulfill this promise to publicly declare his assets. What this refusal to declare assets publicly means is that he has skeletons in his own closet. He is hiding something from Nigerians. He is not as poor as Nigerians have been made to believe and he is probably embarrassed to openly let Nigerian know what he has illicitly accumulated.
 
It would be remembered that on Wednesday March 11, 2015, in Kaduna, President Buhari had promised that he would not probe anyone who was engaged in corruption up till May 29 when he would be sworn in. As far as he was concerned, according to that speech, you can steal all you want up till his swearing-in as president, you would be left untouched. This gave an impetus to more stealing toward the dying days of President Goodluck Jonathan administration. He has by his utterances and actions so far created confusion about what he planned to do about corruption. It is difficult given some of his actions so far if this was not a deliberate act of obfuscation to undermine the war on corruption on the part of President Buhari himself. Now, he has turned around to insist that he would only probe Jonathan’s administration as if corruption just started six years ago; as if Nigeria just came into existence six years ago. What a balderdash!

Buhari And The Challenges of Sainthood – A Rejoinder

By Remi Oyeyemi

I have just finished reading the powerful article by Sonala Olumhense with the heading “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Sainthood.”  Being one of those that I read their articles almost religiously (and I have been following him since his days in The Guardian), I am not unaware that he is a very fervent supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari. He really believes in him. The only thing is that he is not fundamentalist in his belief in the President.

*Buhari 

That he is not fundamentalist does not surprise me. This is because he embodies a mind that is thoroughly developed. A mind translucent in its broadness that it can conveniently encapsulate fervent belief about an idea or a person while simultaneously endowed with the clarity to be critical in a subtle manner; driving home his point forcefully with unequalled succulence.  He has a mind cocoon in intellect. With that kind of mind, dogmatism has nowhere to dodge.

Mr. Olumhense probably drank some Champagne when President Buhari won the last elections to celebrate. If he did, it was not undeserved. President Goodluck Jonathan drove Nigerians nuts for the better part of his tenure. So, to Mr. Olumhense, like millions of other Nigerians, the new President Buhari represents the beacon of new hope and advent of a new era. He was, it seems, a new opportunity to save Nigeria from herself and her peoples. 

Mr. Olumhense’s article in question put on the table series of unfulfilled promises on the part of President Buhari regarding certain actions he was going to take relating to the war on corruption.  He believes it was a “serious embarrassment” that President Buhari failed to release to the public the list of those who have looted our commonwealth, especially, the one given to him by the US government. The list was said to have included information about “names of many corrupt Nigerians, and the location of their stolen funds.” Mr. Olumhense had believed President Buhari’s “punchline” announcing “his deadline for the publication of that list of infamy: May 29.”

 Mr. Olumhense’s frustration flipped open as follows:

“The only problem is that the day arrived, and he made the anniversary speech without including that much-anticipated report.
 
“But such was the tension and the anticipation surrounding the expected announcement that everything in his speech had actually become secondary to it. The ensuing national outrage compelled the government to declare that the Ministry of Information would make the announcement four days later.
 
“Again, however, that date yielded no such report. As the world now knows, the ‘announcement’ finally arrived at the end of that week through the office of the Minister of Information. But while it was informative as to what has been recovered, the report identified none of the corrupt former officials involved.”
 
Evidently, Mr. Olumhense was in despair about the inability of President Buhari to keep his promises made on the war against corruption in several fora.  Assessing the aftermath of that debacle, Mr. Olumhense ruefully commented as follows:
 
“In effect, it means the corrupt elements have won another round, leaving corruption in control, while the government lost a wonderful opportunity it may never regain.”
 
Then he opined correctly as follows:
 
“Perhaps most of all, the events of that week left President Buhari‘s credibility in a fog, and his road to political  sainthood  as broken as a federal Nigerian highway.”

The reason for this level of disappointment on the part of Mr. Olumhense is that he had put more stock in the hyping of Mohammadu Buhari in the days leading to the last presidential elections. His omission in properly interrogating the know-how and qualifications of Buhari in those heady electioneering days made him unwittingly gullible to the propaganda of a possible “Saint Buhari.”
 
Without any doubt, Mr. Olumhense is still holding on to some straws of hope that somehow, someday, someway, President Buhari would change from who he really is and fight this corruption war the way he (Olumhense) has been made to buy hook, line and sinker – without favour or fear. This is an impossibility because President Buhari is innately nepotic. He flits, fibs and feints. He cannot change. Even, if he tries, he won’t be able to change. He is like a leopard that nature has rendered congenitally unable to change his spots.

President Buhari's Cockroach Ride

       By Remi Oyeyemi

President Muhammadu Buhari, has shown that he enjoys sycophancy. He appears to revel in it. He swims in it. He eats and drinks it. He definitely loves it a lot. The echoes of praise – singers are sonorous in his ears. The cacophony of sycophants translates to rhythm of rhymes in his ears. He adores the way boot-lickers make his shoes shine. The cringing around him seems to make him feel whole. It is a revelry not grounded in reality. And if he continues with this attitude to governance, it is easier to see how he would end up. Any president who is already accepting any form of nomination for a second term towards the end of his first uneventful year in office has to be less serious minded than expected.

*Buhari 

The party leaders who are behind this are not friends of President Buhari. To begin to offer him the ticket of the Party three years out at this point in time is premature, sycophantic and inimical to the country’s progress. It is aimed at bringing the President down and ensuring his failure. But Buhari himself, cocooned in self aggrandizement, inebriated in self importance and intoxicated by egoism could not see the danger of the Greek Gift. His crapulent myopia could not avail him the opportunity to see how such a decision was not in his own best interest.

The implication of this is very huge. It suggests that President Buhari wants to be president just for the sake of it and not for the interest of Nigeria and its yoked people. Since he assumed office about a year ago, everything has been going from bad to worse. He has no single achievement he could point to that he has accomplished. He has filtered away all the goodwill he enjoyed when he assumed office and majority of his reasonable supporters are already scratching their heads if they had not made monumental mistake by electing him to the country’s presidency.

Rather than focus on the challenges of putting Nigeria in order and getting things to work, President Buhari has turned himself to Mr. Gulliver. He has been traveling all over the place. This is not new. What is new is that the public uproar about this has not made any dent. He does not seem to care. Nigerians could make as much noise about what he is doing wrong, he won’t be bothered. He has continued to travel and cost Nigeria hard earned naira. Some estimates have put each travel by the president at around NGN 350 million. It could be more in some cases. For a President who complains about lack of money in the national purse, this does not make any sense.

According to a recent report in the media, the combined worth of Presidential Fleet is $390.5 million (NGN 60.53 billion). This fleet includes two Falcon 7X Jets, two Falcon 900 Jets, a Gulfstream 550, one Boeing 737 BBJ, one Gulfstream IVSP, one Gulfstream V, Cessna Citation 2 Aircraft, and Hawker Siddley 125-800 Jet. The President’s party APC criticized the previous president, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan for profligacy. Refusing to dispose some of these Jets to recuperate some money and put an austere style in place makes the President to look like a hypocrite.

Nigeria: All Of A Sudden Nothing Is Working!

By Remi Oyeyemi

I have just finished reading the piece by Mr. Tunde Fagbenle with the above title. I could not resist writing this rejoinder because I found his view in the piece not just interesting but also annoying. I found it very interesting that he has come out to admit what the followers and the “water carriers” of President Muhammadu Buhari have been saying behind the doors because of shame and regret while they go from door to door defending series of indefensible in the public. 

I found it interesting that Mr. Fagbenle is balking at his ilk’s false propagation of Buhari’s sainthood “so soon.” They called him the “messiah” and the “savior” of Nigeria. It is interesting that Mr. Fageble is not willing to wait until at least one year anniversary of the tragic day when President Buhari’s second coming took off. It is interesting that he believed that he could take some of us for a ride – that he is just seeing the light - when this is not the case. He knows it, and those who have been reading his contributions know it too.
 
Mr. Fagbenle is a man of letters. He is by every means a tutored man. I do not know much about him except through his writings. His writings without any doubt convey a mind that is gifted with intellect, circumspection, and insight. He understands that two plus two must equal four in simple arithmetic. He also knows that when two plus two is not equal to four, then jibiti or 419 is involved. So, to come out with the article under reference that he is surprised by the incompetence and the concomitant collapse being manifested by President Buhari is an insult to those who have been reading him.
 
The truth is that Mr. Fagbenle is part of the group who sold the idea of Buhari as President hook, line, and sinker when in fact they knew he has not the intellectual wherewithal to captain the ship of Nigeria. They dressed him in deceptive drapes of adequacy, insisting that he is “the man for the job.” They knew that his trajectory did not justify the confidence with which he was being invested. They were aware that then candidate Buhari would not be able to do the job. When Mr. Fagbenle and his fellow travelers were supporting Buhari, they knew what they were doing, but they had different calculations. So far the calculations have not worked out.  

 
It is weird that someone of Mr. Fagbenle’s erudition, intellect and circumspection could not figure out that someone such as Buhari who could not produce his certificate for the West African Examination Council (WAEC) would be able to correct all the anomalies in Nigeria and save the country. It is weird that Mr. Fagebenle who is not young by any means could pretend not to know the history of Buhari during his first coming. If he did, it is weird that Mr. Fagbenle could ignore all the facts available and helped advance the falsehood of Buhari’s sainthood.

Buhari’s 2016 Budget: A Consolidation Of Corruption

 By Remi Oyeyemi

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”  - Joseph Goebbels

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”   - Adolf Hitler 

*Buhari 

President Muhammadu Buhari promised CHANGE in the days and months leading to the last presidential elections. For a country in comatose, stagnated in misery and miasma, CHANGE was the sing song. At a point in the journey to the presidential elections, Buhari, to and for Nigeria, became much more than the promise of CHANGE. He became the CHANGE that the majority of Nigerians were seeking.

Thanks to the hitherto unprecedented propaganda in the history of Nigeria. It was a dexterous devilish manipulation of information that turned Muhammadu Buhari from the Satan that Nigerians have rejected at the polls for the previous 16 years into a Saint all of a sudden. He became the messiah. He became the savior. Hope rose to high heavens. Excitement was enormously generated. The enthusiasm was pervasive. It was all encompassing. Buhari was everybody’s man. Everyone was Buhari’s man. And woman!

The lies about Buhari were very big but were kept very simple in deference to the gospel according to Adolf Hitler. His party and handlers kept saying those lies repeatedly and consistently. Eventually, Nigerians believed the lies hook, line and sinker. In the face of historical facts to the contrary, Buhari became a man of integrity! Buhari became a man of competence! Buhari became incorruptible!

After sixteen years of trial, Buhari became the President of Nigeria. Contesting for an office for sixteen years consecutively would have meant an adequate preparation and deep grasp of the issues involved. The advantage of ruling the same country once before the second coming was also expected to be helpful. He was expected to know exactly what to do. Buhari was supposed to be the man with a plan; the man with the solution; the savior to salvage and save; the messiah to mesmerize, untie the shackles and set Nigeria free on the path to freedom and realization of its potentials.

Some of us believe that Buhari is and has always been incompetent. In addition to his incompetence, he is also corrupt as facts of history have attested to. Not just by his actions, but by his utterances that are well documented for and by History. But on this second coming, the day he began to deny himself and what he promised Nigerians during his campaign, it was crystal clear that he had no plans for Nigeria. It was clear he had no solutions. It was clear that he is more of the same. At that time, there was no new proof. But now he has provided a brand new proof to Nigerians and for the world to behold. And that proof is his Budget for the Year 2016!

The Biafran Truth and the Illegal Trial of Nnamdi Kanu

By ‘Remi Oyeyemi

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

  – Arthur Schopenhauer

“I’m for truth, mo matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it’s for or against.”

–  Malcom X

With trepidation, I have been watching the subtle descent into dictatorship by the administration of Muhammadu Buhari. I have been watching with disgust President Buhari’s war against freedom of speech. I am very concerned about desperate attempts by President Buhari and his sentries to muzzle the voice of self determination. I am very upset that a government of All Progressive Congress that claimed to love freedom is engaged in deliberate subjugation of innocent citizens who happens to have different views about the state of the polity.

*Nnamdi Kanu

I am very concerned that an innocent man is being denied his freedom. I am scared that an innocent man is being subjected to illegal detention. I am not comfortable that an innocent man is being tried for desiring freedom for his people. I am very disturbed that a non-violent man is being inflicted with unwarranted and undeserved travails. I am worried that a lot of unwary observers who are not properly schooled in the elementary tenets of democracy are vilifying an innocent man.

Nnamdi Kanu is an innocent man. He has not committed any crime to make him deserve the kind of treatment being meted out to him. You do not have to like Nnamdi Kanu. You do not have to agree with him or his desires for his people. But no one has the right to deny him his fundamental human right to be free. No one has the right to deny him the right to self-determine his destiny as he sees it or wants it. No one has the right to shut him up because they do not like what he is saying or because they feel threatened by what he is saying.

Mr. Kanu’s exploits are known to all and sundry.  His desire is to have a homeland for his people. His desire is to free his people from the shackles of Nigeria. His desire is to see his people get to the promised land of Biafra. His dream is to see his people in control of their own destiny. His desire is to have a say in who governs him and his people. His desire is to ensure that no oligarchy or neo-oligarchic interests within the Ndigbo homeland is able to hold his people in bondage. His desire is to be able to water the tree of liberty for his people. There is nothing criminal in or about all this.

In all this, he has only employed semantics. He has only deployed sophistry. He had only appropriated the airwaves to be able to reach his people. He has not acquired arms. He has not killed anybody. He has not declared any armed war against anyone or organization. The only war he has ever declared is against the continued subjugation, enslavement and denigration of his Igbo people. It is a war of idea. A war of and for the minds of his people to see what he is seeing, to desire what he is desiring, to dream what he is dreaming. And he is doing that peacefully. He has been able to make his case to the majority of Ndigbo and the youths of that nation who are indeed the future of Biafra.

He is mobilizing his people to engage in the struggle to be free from their enslavement by the Nigerian State. He is making a clarion call for his people to stand up for their rights and self determine their destinies, or collective destiny. He has been innovative. He has been peaceful. He has been determined. He has been methodical. He has been deliberate. He has been consistent. He has persevered. And he is making sacrifices. There is nothing criminal in or about this.