Nigerian Lawmakers As Champions Of Electoral Malpractices!

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

There is no doubt that members of Nigeria’s National Assembly have grown too big for their boots and it is time the Nigerian people are massively fed with the liberating enlightenment that they possess the powers to cut them to size. Yes, the lawmakers need to be served an urgent reminder that they are in that Legislative House because the people have so far chosen to tolerate their deficient representation and can wake up one morning, decide that they have had enough of their abject lack of patriotism, suffocating arrogance and insensitivity and ask them to pack their loads and return home.  

 *Senate President Lawan, President Buhari and Speaker               Gbajabiamila   

Their recent decision to brazenly sabotage the yearning of Nigerians for a more transparent and credible electoral process by voting against electronic transmission of results only served to open the eyes of many Nigerians to the extent these lawmakers have convinced themselves that they have become untouchable emperors who can ride roughshod on the citizenry and abort their most cherished aspirations without the minutest fear of any consequence.

That Unprofitable Ministerial Screening In Nigeria!

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Working as a political appointee in Nigeria is, perhaps, merely an exercise in extreme perfunctoriness. I doubt if those who accept these offices, those who offer them and those who “screen” and confirm the appointees, are driven by any vision at all, any objective to achieve for the progress of the country.

What is very clear is that whereas work for these officers is largely undertaken desultorily (with little or no intention to achieve any significant outcome), what appears to drive most of them is the opportunity to arrange or negotiate what might enter their private pockets from the public purse. It is at the point when there are funds to loot that one would be startled to discover that the Nigerian public office holder is, indeed, capable of being very zealous, thorough and focused, that he can conscientiously pursue a set goal and achieve it with amazing aplomb and precision.

Army Should Produce Nnamdi Kanu

By Ochereome Nnanna

The excesses of the leader of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, needed to be put in check, no doubt. But I think the Army totally mismanaged it and put those who signed his sureties at risk. In April this year, Justice Binta Murtala Nyako of the Abuja High Court brought relief to the tensed atmosphere wrought by the continued illegal detention of Kanu and granted him bail on rather draconian conditions.

*Nnamdi Kanu

Apart from being barred from granting interviews, addressing rallies and being in a group of more than ten people at any time, he was required to procure three sureties for the sum of N100 million each, one of whom must be a Jewish religious leader (Kanu being a self-acclaimed adherent of the Jewish religion).

Contrary to expectations, the sureties stepped forward. One of them was a notable politician, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, who represents Abia South Senatorial Zone which covers Aba, the hotbed of the Biafran agitation and the wellspring of Igbo nationalism.

Apart from possible political opportunism, I understood Abaribe’s readiness to accept the risky challenge of standing surety for Kanu. He must have felt duty-bound to obey his constituents’ wishes. I think Abaribe was also convinced Kanu would not jump bail. Yes indeed, Kanu violated all the conditions attached to his bail, except the one that concerned Abaribe and the other sureties: jumping bail.