Buhari’s Eight Years Of Governance Disaster

 By Kiikpoye K. Aaron

With the exception of the first and last election cycles, President Buhari’s name was a regular feature on Nigeria’s presidential ballot in her current experiment with electoral democracy. Needless to add, he was a serial failure until 2015 when a convergence of forces, for all the wrong reasons, threw him up as Nigeria’s President. His desire to be President was pursued with such consuming passion that his lacrimal glands broke loose when defeat was imminent in the 2011 election.

*Buhari 

Yes, a retired Army General openly and uncontrollably wept like a peevish schoolboy. He wept for a nation that could not see the messiah in him. Had Buhari died in 2011 or had he withdrawn from further participation in politics, the most predictable popular epithet about him in death would have been ‘the best President Nigeria never had.’

APC Crisis: Oshiomhole Is Becoming A Problem, Not The Solution

By SKC Ogbonnia

The most compelling attribute of Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, the new chairman of our great party, the All Progressive Congress (APC), remains the doggedness in which he organized protests during the democratic regime of then president, Olusegun Obasanjo. But events thus far are revealing the hard truth: trade union activism is far from party leadership. This point is that, Oshiomhole, who was brought in to stave off crisis and lead the party to victory in 2019, is already becoming a problem, not the solution. 

*President Buhari and Adams Oshiomole

Recall that the first turmoil that greeted Oshiomhole’s chairmanship was the splinter group, the Reformed APC (R-APC). Instead of exploring meaningful avenues for peace at the time, the new party chairman heightened the crisis by attacking the group’s credibility. To Oshiomhole, the R-APC was inconsequential, boasting that the party would win in 2019 regardless. He went further to dismiss the group merely as a “counter force” against “President Muhammadu Buhari’s resolve to fight corruption.” 

The Limits Of President Buhari’s Powers

By Obi Nwakanma
 Adams Oshiomole, former President of the Nigerian Labour Council (NLC), immediate past governor of Edo State and, most recently, National Chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC, has called on the Federal Government to “deal ruthlessly with looters” of the national treasury. The reports of Oshiomole’s statement carried in the Nigerian newspapers variously led with this headline “Buhari should deal ruthlessly with looters.”

*President Buhari 

My problem is: I do not know exactly if Oshiomole is actually conflating the president with the Federal Government of Nigeria. The president is Head of the executive branch of the federal government, and thus head of state, since the executive is that branch of government that is constitutionally mandated to manage the executive functions of the state by the act of the federation. The executive is however not the “Federal Government of Nigeria.” It is a branch of the Federal Government of Nigeria.

If Buhari Apologised For June 12, Who Will Apologise For Him?

By Reno Omokri

To say I was stunned when Asiwaju Bola Tinubu said Buhari had fulfilled his campaign promises and deserved a second term would be an understatement. I mean it is the holy month of Ramadan for goodness sakes. Even if Bola Tinubu wanted to spew such nonsense, why would he do it at a time when the Muslim Ummah should be displaying piety.

*President Buhari 

Even as I write this, I am trying to comprehend why Tinubu made such a fallacious statement. How could he possibly say that Buhari deserves a second term because he has kept his campaign promises? Why do Buhari, Lai Mohammed, Garba shehu and now Tinubu continue to lie during Ramadan? Is ₦1 equal to $1? Is petrol ₦40 per liter? Has he created 3 million jobs per year? Is Buhari paying the promised Job Seekers Allowance?

Buhari And Remembrance Of Things Past

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

As the first half of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration lurches into the twilight, it is refreshing that he has given us an opportunity to interrogate his intervention in national politics from another perspective. Beyond the well-worn exploration of Buhari as a profile in persistence, having taken him over a decade to chase a return to power, we can now attend to the   relationship between personal tragedies and national glories.

*Buhari

It is now clear from Buhari’s disclosure in Benin during his commissioning of some projects of the outgoing Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole that his tragedy of incarceration after his overthrow in 1985 as military head of state remains a stimulant for his quest for regaining power.  Buhari said that he spent 40 months in a bungalow in Benin after he was overthrown by some corrupt army officers. In fact, he said that the coup was a preemptive strike against his crusade against some corrupt officers.

From that crucible of 1985, through the next 30 years, Buhari might have realised the essence of engendering an equitable society. But as he tells us, such a society is not attainable in so far as it remains a bastion for the proliferation of injustice as evident in the complicity of the judiciary in the denial of his electoral victories on three previous occasions. Of course, Buhari’s quest for an equitable society after suffering injustice is not an isolated case. Before him, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, among others appropriated a sense of injustice inflicted by warped state powers to develop their societies.

Even back at home, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was prised from prison to cobble together a dismembering nation. But in the case of Buhari, it is unfortunate that while his regaining of power after 30 years might have served a personal cathartic purpose, it is far from playing a significant role in his relationship with the need for the development of the country. For the danger that the nation faces today under the Buhari government is that at the end of his tenure, he would have succeeded in making millions of citizens to feel a sense of injustice and alienation from the society. This is the clear possibility that Buhari would engender through his policies and programmes.

If Buhari had truly learnt the lessons of suffering injustice, he would guard against fostering a sense of injustice. But does Buhari really have consideration for the need to ensure justice for others? Consider his  appointments  since he  became president. How have these ensured justice and the strengthening of the unity of the country?  In those appointments, Buhari brazenly favoured his northern part of the country. It is such nepotism that has thrown up a situation where from the National Assembly, the military, police, Department of State Services,  other security apparatuses, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), to other major government agencies, the heads are northerners.

APC: A Mistake Edo State Must Not Make

By Jude Ndukwe

September 28, 2016, is epochal in the history of the great Edo State. It is a date when life beckons on the people to embark on a game-changing and life-amending venture; a time when the people are called out by the Benevolent, the God of second chance, to right the wrong they elevated to a position of authority and immense responsibility eight years ago.

That day is the day when Edo people will finally extricate themselves from the shackles of a searing chain fresh from the hissing fires of a renowned blacksmith and etched in the back of the people with a heart that chooses to be deliberately unmindful of the people’s sufferings. That APC, by the virtue of their worsening abysmal performances everywhere they go, both at the federal and state levels, has since grown into that monstrous party not fitting to replace itself in any election in the name of continuity, is no longer news.

What is news is that they still have the temerity to present themselves for election after all they have done to Nigeria just within one year! Nobody, not even the good people of Edo State would want a continuity of suffering, of human degradation, infrastructural decay, ethnic discrimination and general underdevelopment. These are some of the ‘natural’ traits of the All Progressives Congress which are well known not only to Nigerians but also to the whole world. In other climes, where service to the people is a priority and the elevation of their standard of living is government’s main focus, the party would not be going about insulting the sensibilities of Nigerians by wildly gyrating with so much brazenness as we saw the president’s delegation do in APC’s grand rally in Edo recently.

It is only a government without shame for its widely acknowledged failures and a party without human sympathy for the mega-sufferings it has visited on the people that would embark on such a banal celebration of the destruction of a people and their nation without restraint in so short a time. Since APC took charge of governance, the people can barely live and hardly survive. The hunger in the land is real and the frustration palpable. Nigeria, right under the nose of President Buhari and his gyrators, has slid into its worst recession in history. Millions have lost their jobs as companies after companies, both local and international, keep closing shops due to the economic hardship.

Yet, the price of foodstuff keeps rising while the naira has been adjudged the worst performing currency in the whole wide world after Suriname and Venezuela. What a story! This is after all the grandiose promises of turning the moon into sunlight for Nigerians and creating a state of Eldorado and Utopia for them. However, the Nigerian state has since become the legendary Hobbesian State where life is not only nasty and short but also brutish under the watch of APC. With the free rein of death in the hands of terrorist Fulani herdsmen all over the country, the extra-judicial murders and endless incarceration of citizens even against court orders by state agents, the descent of Nigeria into the Hobbesian state of anomie is confirmed.

No, Comrade Oshiomhole, No!

By SOC Okenwa 

Initially I had wanted to caption this piece “The Comrade’s Last Wish” but changed my mind and went for the one above. As a writer one wrestles, sometimes, with titles for articles but in the end one arrives at settling for a better one that would convey a message.

Governor Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole’s last wish may not be, after all, what his detractors and critics would want us believe. That is, aspiring to become a glorified godfather of Edo State politics in the mould of expired Anthony Anenih. Or destabilising the politics of the state like a bull in a China shop before bowing out in the near future. Or worse still, wanting desperately to install someone, a lackey who would not live up to expectation or measure up to the landmark achievements of the present occupant of Dennis Osadebay Government House in Benin city. The comrade-governor is leaving behind a big shoe — one difficult to fill but good candidates abound in Edo State.

Gov Oshiomole and his wife Iiara 

Comrade Oshiomhole came to power in Edo state as an action governor, a no-nonsense seasoned unionist who was not afraid of reforms in the system or politics of godfatherism that nearly ‘killed’ the ‘heartbeat of the nation’ before his celebrated ascendancy. Prior to his arrival onto the scene Benin City remained a “developing village” where witches and wizards congregated at wee hours of the night to hatch evil bloody plots. The two PDP Governors that preceded his emergence (Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor and Lucky Igbinedion) performed below average and made the people of the state poorer infrastructurally and economically. Igbinedion was the worst governor ever! He seemed to be content on being called the son of Igbinedion (a wealthy family in Benin city and Okada wonderland) and he had fun frolicking with beautiful Uniben undergraduates (to satisfy his libido problem) as governance suffered.

By the time the ‘Prince’ left office billions of Naira and millions of Dollars had been looted from the state coffers! The lucky Lucky had fought a bitter political battle with the ex-governor (now APC National Chairman) John Odigie-Oyegun for the governorship of the state decades ago with the latter trouncing him at the polls. As a student in Benin City then we witnessed the ‘guber war’ play out on state radio and TV and on campaign grounds across the state. It was reminiscent of the nostalgic Ogbemudia/Ambrose Ali gubernatorial crossfire. Lucky was desperate to become Governor after the scandal that trailed his Chairmanship of Oredo Local Government Area. But when, eventually, he got power he made a whole mess of it. Before his rise to the top controversy had manifested itself over the gruesome murder of George Idah in his office as Chairman of Oredo Local Govt. Needless to say here that fingers were pointed at his direction as the culprit.

Between Governor Oshiomhole And Comrade Oshiomole

By Denzel Chukwudinma

Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole is a popular name to the poor and indigent in Nigeria. This is consequent on his popularity when he was President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC).

*Adams Oshiomole 

Oshiomhole came to limelight when, as a labour leader, he aggressively fought the anti-people policies of the then President Olusegun Obasanjo. Before then, Oshiomhole had been in the trenches fighting for the rights of the Nigerian workers. He was once a threat to factories that treat their workers in inhuman manner.

He was everywhere at the time. I remember when he visited Texlon on LSDPC Compound in Amuwo-Odofin in 1995 to issue a warning to the owners of that company, to desist from “casualisation” of their workers and stop every inhuman treatment.

Workers saw Oshiomhole as the hero they had waited for to salvage them from the claws of their ‘taskmasters’ who wanted them to work without pay. Oshiomhole was a compassionate, amiable and respected leader at that time.

One Party State Loading In Nigeria: The APC Game Plan

By Olanrewaju Aderemi Obafemi

A few days after the 1999 Presidential Election, then Comrade Adams Oshiomhole led a delegation of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to Ota, Ogun State to congratulate the winner of that election. While hosting the NLC team then President-Elect, General Olusegun Obasanjo, still smarting from his wholesale rejection in the South West, swore to destroy the Alliance for Democracy (AD) “in the national interest”. 

*Buhari and Obasanjo

He argued that with the kind of hold that the AD had on the South West it could only remain a regional party and that as long as the South West remained loyal to it the Yoruba would not be able to play at the national stage. Then National Secretary General of AD was procured by Obasanjo to foment a crisis, which he executed, but unfortunately he trusted Obasanjo to reward him handsomely and neglected to negotiate properly. What he got was a directorship in an obscure federal agency.

Shortly after Obasanjo leaked his infamous December 2013 letter to President Goodluck Jonathan to the press the leadership of the then newly registered All Progressive Congress went to Abeokuta to pay homage to the ex-president and invited him to help guide their new party to success. Obviously basking in the recognition that had been accorded him Obasanjo promised to help. He subsequently kept haranguing President Jonathan until the immediate past president was defeated at the polls.

2015 General Elections

Apart from President Jonathan’s principal shortcoming, which was neglecting the communities that supported him to victory in 2011 and instead heavily patronizing the ones that did not support him in the hope that he could turn them, the 2015 Presidential Election was won by rumours. What? While preparing to make a bid for the presidency a record fourth time General Muhammadu Buhari tasked an associate of his, Prof. Femi Olufunmilade, Head of Department of International Relations and Strategic Studies and Sub Dean of the School of Post Graduate Studies and Research at the Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, to avail him of a strategy with which to defeat the incumbent president. Olufunmilade accomplished the task and submitted a report which indicated that the only way incumbents have been unseated in Africa was through widespread disaffection with the government of the day.

Why I Withdrew From The APC Bayelsa Governorship Primary

By Timi Alaibe

It is with all nostalgia that I recall the zeal, enthusiasm and hope with which thousands of Bayelsans made a statement in the direction of change in August, 2015. I can also vividly recall a mental replay of the occasion wherein a qualitative representation of the leadership of our great party, the All Progressives Congress ( APC) ushered in respected leaders and members from their then party, Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP)

That singular event has been phenomenal just as its true meaning and direction have all exuded confidence, unity of purpose, cohesion, collectivism and courage. That day undoubtedly marked the beginning of a people's journey from hopelessness and quandary as enunciated by the accidental PDP-led ‎government in Bayelsa state to that of quality leadership that an APC government will represent.

As one of such leaders who took that historic decision, I thought of giving a further bite to my burning desire to extricate the state from‎ abysmal leadership failure. Therefore, my aspiration to be governor after series of consultations was to rekindle our collective hope and lift the state beyond its current state of decay under the PDP. 

How Long Will President Buhari’s Intoxicant Work?

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 
Strange and worrisome as the decision by the Buhari administration to limit its ongoing probe of public officers and institutions to the era of the regime it took over from is, not a few Nigerians are encouraged by the fact that a bold attempt to expose shameless looting of public treasury and allow the law to punish those implicated in the mindless plunder of the country’s resources is indeed happening. At least, it is being drummed into everyone’s consciousness once more that stealing of any kind is a most revolting and self-debasing crime which only the scum and scoundrels of the society are attracted to. It should by no means be witnessed, accommodated or, worse, celebrated and glamorized within the bounds of civilized and decent society as several members of Nigeria’s ruling elite have brazenly done for many years now.

*Buhari

We have heard allegations of witch-hunting and all that, but the pertinent question to ask is: are you guilty of what you are being accused of? Did you loot the amount of money you are being accused of carting away?  In fact, it is most insulting that any person would want to solicit our sympathy after callously stealing what belongs to all of us and impoverishing the majority.

The submission that many of you looted the treasury but only a couple of you are being singled out for investigation is lame, even nauseating and grossly offensive. The point is that you looted public funds and today is your day, so face it! Tomorrow may be the turn of your partners in crime. Let the process just begin. We should, however, not rule out the possibility that along the line, the anti-corruption “war” may eventually get out of hand and grow to overwhelm even its initiators and supervisors and kick-start a far-reaching housecleaning and reclamation process where discrimination may no longer be possible. Already, the signs are embarrassingly showing up everywhere and it remains to be seen how long Buhari would remain comfortable with his current preference of harassing some alleged thieves and hobnobbing with others, even the real godfathers in the business. 

 

But this is not even the main worry. There is a growing concern at several informed quarters now about whether President Muhammadu Buhari is truly sincere about fighting corruption to the ground or is the whole thing not merely another means to some end!