Beyond The Seizure Of Presidential Aircraft

 By Ugo Onuoha

Gracious and humane creditors? Or how else can we describe the gesture of Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. Limited who are on the winning side, at least for now, of an arbitration dispute with Nigeria. The company has a standing Paris court order with which it impounded three of Nigeria’s presidential jets.

 

They were grounded in France where two of the aircraft had gone for servicing. The third, a recently acquired Airbus, Nigerian president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s latest luxury toy, was reportedly flown to France for retrofitting and sundry luxury upgrades to suit the status and taste of the ruler of the country which since 2019 has been designated as the global capital for the abject poor.

Lagos-Calabar Highway Robbery

 By Ugo Onuoha

The intention may have been noble when the former President, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo sowed the seed of the Lagos – Calabar Coastal Highway in 2006. For those who may not know or are unable to connect the dots, the notorious East- West road in the Niger Delta region of our country was actually conceptualized and designed to be constructed as a phase of the project that has metamorphosed as the Lagos – Calabar Coastal Highway.

 The problem was that the lack of clarity, purpose, buy-in and transparency that dogged the Obasanjo East – West road now appears to be afflicting the current President, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Lagos – Calabar Coastal Highway. But this one is dripping with a carefully crafted fraud.

Creeping Media Clampdown In Nigeria!

 By Ugo Onuoha

Three things happened in the past week that signpost the looming frosty relationship between the press and the regime of Nigeria’s President, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The government is already struggling with the widespread deleterious effects of its own policy missteps of the removal of the so-called petrol subsidy and the ‘floating’ of Nigeria’s national currency, the naira.

In their different ways the ill-conceived and badly implemented policies have ensured the destruction of the Naira, spiralling inflation and pauperization of more Nigerians than at any other given period in our 53-year history as an Independent country.

Bola Tinubu’s Chicago Blues And Nigeria’s Shame

 By Ugo Onuoha

Three significant things happened in Nigeria and about Nigeria in the last 10 days. And many more happened in the past several weeks, all of them speaking to the state of Nigeria. But the most significant, perhaps, was the story that broke on Sunday to the effect that a United States court in Chicago had rejected Nigeria’s President, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s urgent and desperate plea that a district court should strike down a ruling by a magistrate court that his academic records be released by Chicago State University [CSU].

*Tinubu 

A brief on the processes that led to the court’s ruling on Saturday will be needful. About two weeks ago, Nigeria’s former Vice President, who was a contestant during the February presidential election in Nigeria, had approached a Chicago Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Gilbert for the release on oath of Tinubu’s CSU records.

Attacks On The Igbo In Lagos

 By Obi Nwakanma

A massive wave of discontent has trailed the results of the 2023 general elections. A vast majority of Nigerians believe, and have clear evidence that the results were brazenly stolen by the ruling party, and that this heist is a dare to Nigerians to go do their worse. This is one election result in which not a single sense of jubilation has been witnessed in any part of Nigeria, North South, East or West.

There is no sense of an achievement, or of hope. There is instead, something of a bated breath, a deadly sense of something brewing in the firmament, like a stifled sneeze. The parties have gone to court. Nigerians do not trust the courts. But they seem also to just hold out hope, for one more chance, that judging with the evidence before them, the court of justice would do its duty to Nigeria and restore the mandate of the people based on the truth before them.

Nigeria: Tainted Presidency For A Broken Country

 By Ugo Onuoha

Elections are combining with other factors to destroy Nigeria’s democracy. And the country itself. The signs are writ large though we play the ostrich. Elsewhere, especially in saner climes, elections help to strengthen the foundations and building blocks of democracy. Not so here. Since the return of civil rule in 1999, which by the way had been dominated by retired army generals, elections have turned out to be poorly planned and even more poorly conducted.

The consequences are that election results have serially failed to reflect the will of the majority of Nigerians, and so more and more of our people are turning their backs on the ballot box as an acceptable mode of choosing their preferred political leaders. The fear is that the outcome of the 2023 presidential election will compound the loss of faith in democracy.

Muslim-Muslim Ticket: Christians, Stand Up For Your Faith In 2023!

 By Olu Fasan

This weekend, on December 25, Christians worldwide will celebrate Christmas to mark the birth of Jesus Christ. In every country with a predominant or substantial Christian population, the president or vice-president, the head of state or prime minister, will be a Christian.

However, in Nigeria, where Christians account for nearly half of the population, this year’s Christmas may be the last, for probably the next eight years, that Christianity would be represented politically at Nigeria’s seat of sovereign, the Presidency; that someone professing the Christian faith would be either president or vice-president!

Nigeria: Still On The Same Faith Ticket

 By Olu Fasan

Every well-meaning Nigerian must remain outraged by the choice of a Muslim-Muslim ticket by Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress, APC. Every patriotic Nigerian should be appalled by the utter insensitivity and perniciousness of the calculated decision that belittles Christianity and puts religious harmony and internal cohesion at greater risk in Nigeria. Of course, the issue won’t go away; we will discuss it until next year’s elections. My focus here is the symbolism of the choice. 

*Tinubu and Shettima 

Self-servingly, some have mischaracterised the opposition to the Muslim-Muslim ticket. Recently, Festus Keyamo, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment and spokesman of the Tinubu presidential campaign, said it was about “balance of power”. According to him, Christians feared losing power at the centre if Tinubu became president with Kashim Shettima, a fellow Muslim, as his vice-president. He said this was misguided because the vice-president “is powerless”. 

2023: Shettima Unfit To Be Nigeria’s Vice-President

 By Olu Fasan 

If Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, becomes president next year, it is not only his exclusionist Muslim-Muslin presidency that would unsettle Nigeria, but also his would-be deputy, Alhaji Kashim Shettima. With Shettima’s inherent tetchiness and truculence, he would be gratuitously provocative. And with his uncouthness and indiscretion, he would be utterly divisive and toxifying. Truth is, a Vice-President Shettima would be unlike any civilian vice-president in Nigeria’s history. 

*Tinubu and Shettima 

But that proposition stands on another critical one that we must discuss first, namely: no previous presidential candidate in Nigeria did what Tinubu has done. I’m not referring to the devilry of his Muslim-Muslim ticket. Rather, I’m talking about his deliberate decision to pick a long-standing political ally and close associate as his running-mate. None of the past leading presidential candidates behaved in that manner.