Obi's Resignation: A Fight Against Delegated Corruption On Behalf Of Nigerians

 By Bolaji O. Akinyemi

Just about two weeks ago I wrote an article titled, " Nigeria: A Nation At The Mercy Of Political Party Delegates". Where I established that the two leading political parties in Nigeria; APC and PDP as institutions cannot deliver the hope and yearnings of Nigerian electorates for a new Nigeria. That the system are constricted against the evolution of productive leadership. 

*Peter Obi 

PDP, we were informed by APC in the build up to 2015 elections, that they spread corruption. Unfortunately, we have witnessed first hand the ground gaining of corruption and the consolidation of non state actors' hold on the jugular of our nation like never before! 

I made definite assertions and offered some pieces of advice, some of which are; "If I were a delegate of APC, I won't shift support away from Osinbajo for a 100 million delegates' package from any Aspirant. His only challenge, will be how to triumph through the lies and propaganda that his party has become in public perspective, going forward to general elections... 

Lai Mohammed And The APC: Uncommonly Gifted Liars!

By Reno Omokri

Last week, Lai Mohammed, the infamous minister of information (if you can call what he does as dishing out information) denied being a liar and rhetorically asked newsmen interviewing him to “give me one thing that I have said which is not true”.
When I read that, I thought that perhaps he had repented from his demonic pastime of lying. But it appears I spoke too soon and I was too hopeful!

*President Buhari and Lai Mohammed 

I say this because just days after justifying himself and in response to the US congress citing Nigeria as “the most dangerous place for Christians in the world”, Lai Mohammed had the following to say: “Such fallacies like the Islamisation of Nigeria, the killing of Christians by Muslims, the labelling of Nigeria as the most dangerous place for Christians in the world.”

I do not know about the Islamisation of Nigeria and I doubt that President Muhammadu Buhari has such intentions, but to say that “the killing of Christians by Muslims” is a ‘fallacy’ is a special kind of a lie that could only have proceeded from the lips of a man whose own parents saw the perfidious destiny ahead of him and chose to name their child Lai accordingly!

I know for a fact that thousands of Christians have been killed by Muslims since President Muhammadu Buhari came to power including hundreds in Southern Kaduna (possibly thousands), even more hundreds in Agatu in Benue (although the Agatu Community Elders said over 6,000 of their people have been killed), hundreds in Bali and Donga Local Government Areas of Taraba, over a hundred killed in Enugu, hundreds in Delta, and multiple other deaths of Christians at the hands of Islamic extremists Fulani herdsmen.

This is besides the thousands of Christians killed by Boko Haram and Evangelist Bridget Agbahime beheaded in Kano (and whose suspected killers were discharged and acquitted on the instructions of the Kano State Attorney General) and Pastor Eunice Elisha killed in Kubwa after the morning ministration (whose killers were not surprisingly never charged).
Lai Mohammed has a very distinguished career in lying. I imagine that if he could find his way there, Lucifer will gladly give him an honorary PhD from the University of the Pit of Hell!

Elsewhere, I have detailed his lies but in this piece I want to inform my readers of a troubling pattern I am noticing which is that lying seems to be the default pattern of communication for not just Lai, but the ruling All Progressives Congress, its members and sympathisers. I will prove it.
Two years ago, Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka, a known APC surrogate LIED that former President Jonathan wanted to kill him. Today, hunger is killing Nigerians and Mbaka’s lying mouth is silent!

Is President Buhari A Sectional Leader?

By Jide Ojo

The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to effect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies”

– Section 14 (3) of 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, as amended.

*President Buhari with new IGP Tukur

Love him or hate him, President Muhammadu Buhari is a man of destiny. The trajectory of his life’s odyssey clearly points to that. Mr. President has held different public offices from his youth to old age. He has been a military governor, petroleum minister, chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund, Head of State and now an elected President of the most populous country in Africa.

Many will vouch for the President as an honest man hence the appellation of “Mai Gasikiya” which means one who always says the truth in Hausa language. He is seen as an austere man who lives a Spartan life despite having held many privileged positions. However, many others have also alleged that the President is a religious bigot and a provincial leader. In trying to puncture the accusation of bigotry, for the four times he ran for presidential office, he always chose a Christian running mate and twice even chose clerics – Pastor Tunde Bakare in 2011 and Pastor Yemi Osinbajo in 2015. However, The President has yet to fully dismiss the allegations that he is a provincial leader.

On his assumption of office, all the major appointments President Buhari made were from the north with the exception of, perhaps, his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr Ibe Kachikwu. At the time Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu was touted as being likely to be made the Secretary to the Federal Government, the President decided to pick Babachir David Lawal from Adamawa State. The President’s Chief of Staff is also from the North. Now, news making the rounds shows that a chunk of the national security and defence sector is dominated not only by people of northern extraction but also Muslims. Let’s take a count: The National Security Adviser; Chief of Army Staff; Chief of Air Staff; Comptroller General of Customs; Comptroller General of Immigration; Comptroller General of Prisons; the Director General of the Department of State Services; the Commandant-General of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, and now the Acting Inspector General of Police appointed last week.

The Defeat Of President Buhari’s Idealism

By Femi Aribisala
THINGS  have not been going according to plan for President Buhari.  For the last four months since his famous victory, the president has been engaged with a battle royal with the very people who put him in power.  In order to win the election, Buhari had to form an alliance with wily politicians of the old-school; men seasoned at getting their hands dirty and adept at manipulating the system to power-political advantage.

*Femi Aribasala

Buhari had tried to make it without these men in the past, but without success.  On his third attempt in 2011, he opted for Tunde Bakare as his running mate.  Bakare was not a politician but a man of known integrity: a radical Christian pastor to boot.  Nevertheless, Buhari still lost by 10 million votes to the lesser-known Goodluck Jonathan.

In 2015, he chose Yemi Osinbajo as his running-mate, another man of integrity and, yet again, a Christian pastor.  But there was something different this time around.  He agreed to dine with known  political devils.  He formed an alliance with the very political elite he had long despised.  These are men who know the crooked ropes of the Nigerian political system.  They know how to finance a nationwide campaign  with  funds obtained magically; no questions asked.  They know  how to buy and manipulate the press.  They know  how to conjure votes with the sleight of hand.

With their help, Buhari finally became president against all the odds.  The million naira question then became how he would rule alongside these strange bedfellows.  How is he going to be their anointed president without becoming one of them?  How is he going to be president without becoming another politician?  How can he become president through the help of these men without becoming hostage to them in his victory?

Buhari  has  kept Nigeria waiting as he struggled with this dilemma.  While the press nicknamed him “Baba Go-Slow,” behind the scenes, he was fighting an epic battle against his strange allies the best way he knew how.  In that free-for-all, Buhari has thrown his best punches and made his best moves.  Finally, after four months of protracted infighting in which his media handlers  tried all they could to put the best spin on the situation, he finally caved in and accepted defeat.

On 30th September, 2015, Buhari was forced to accept he could not go it alone.  On that day, he finally decided to join the APC politically as its president.  Even more significantly, he finally agreed to join forces as president with those he had despised all his political life; the PDP.  On that fateful day, President Muhammadu Buhari jettisoned his earlier druthers.  He relinquished his much-ballyhooed “change” programme and became reluctantly a full-fledged old-school politician.

*President Buhari and Senate President, Saraki

Buhari’s first mistake was to presume his campaign idealism could carry him through his presidency.  Having won the election comfortably, the president decided the decent thing to do was to allow the legislators in the National Assembly to choose their own leaders without interference from Aso Rock.

This was a departure  from the procedure of his predecessors and his naïve supporters praised him for it.  This was the Buhari they voted for; a man who would breathe new life into the clogged political system.  But the whole thing backfired disastrously as the president became a victim of his own attempted saintliness.