Nigeria: One Year Under Tinubu…

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Time flies. Does time really fly? Whichever, next Wednesday will mark the first anniversary of the Tinubu presidency. May 29, 2023, was a day many Nigerians will not forget in a hurry. It was on that day that flimsy fabrics holding economic strands together was brutally rent asunder by a proclamation that we are all now familiar with: removal of subsidy on petrol. Up till the moment Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was reading his inaugural address to the nation, petrol sold for N187 per litre. 

*Tinubu

Before he finished reading the address, many petrol marketers shut their stations, and queues began growing at filling stations. By the following day, May 30, reality dawned on Nigerians as they awoke to the reality of higher prices of petrol. The increase was threefold; a litre of petrol was selling for N568, and that was the cheapest, available only at NNPC Retail stations. Other marketers, major or minor sold for prices anywhere between N700 and N650 in the Lagos and Abuja areas. 

Options Before Bola Tinubu And His Critics

 By Jideofor Adibe

The Friday, May 26, 2023 Supreme Court’s dismissal of the appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party seeking the disqualification of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in the February 25, 2023 presidential election over alleged double nomination of his Vice-President Senator Kashim Shettima, essentially removed the last hurdle to his inauguration on May 29, 2023.

*Bola Tinubu

This means in essence that those who cannot bear the thought of Tinubu and Shettima as President and Vice President respectively will have to find a way of adjusting to the reality that they will be stuck with the duo till August this year (at the earliest) when the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the challenges to the INEC-declared outcome of the election. We are of course assuming that there will be no other unforeseen variable in-between. 

No Adesina, Bishop Kukah Is Not Your Mate

 By Charles Okoh

Femi Adesina is shameless. To think that he is even a supposed cleric makes him even more shameless. Only a shameless man would make bogus claims and with a straight face still insists that the gibberish he spews forth is the truth.

*Bishop Kukah and Femi Adesina

Personally, I had resolved not to react to whatever Adesina or those who are media minders of President Buhari say, because it’s obvious that they have completely made a mess of whatever their assignment is and inadvertently done a great deal of disservice to their floundering principal.

Again, US Snubs Nigeria As Kamala Visits Africa

 By Habib Aruna

Nigeria’s waning influence in global affairs was again badly hit with the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, currently visiting three African countries, while sidelining the so-called giant of Africa. The US VP came to the continent with a first stop at Ghana. She’s on a weeklong, three-nation African tour, the latest in a series of visits by senior US officials as Washington seeks to counter growing Chinese and Russian influence on the continent.

*US Vice President Kamala Harris with her Ghanaian counterpart, Mahamudu Bawumia, in Accra on Sunday, March 26, 2023

She will also go to Tanzania and Zambia. The last time a senior American government official visited the country was when Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, made a stopover in Abuja in November 2021. Nigeria has largely been sidelined in the scheme of things by the international community, especially during the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Nigeria: Comma In The Caution From DSS

 By Emmanuel Aziken

The Department of State Services, DSS, trended this week after the internal police issued a statement of caution over an alleged plot by some political actors to install an interim government.

The DSS in the statement said it had identified the political actors involved and  went further to insinuate the stages that they had gone and the options that the assumed plotters have been weighing in their aspiration.

Naira Redesign: In Whose Interests Are These Politicians Fighting?

 By Charles Okoh

There can be no telling the measure of pressure faced by Nigerians at a time as this. What is not in doubt is whatever the intent of the presidency in pursuing the redesign of some currencies, the discomfort Nigerians suffer now, if nothing is done about it might as well get to a level where the people can no longer bear the pains and inconveniences any more. At that stage, nothing is predictable.

In spite of repeated denials by Godwin Emefiele, that the naira redesign is not political and not targeted at any politician, the reaction of the members of the National Assembly and governors, especially of the APC, suggest that, indeed, there may be more to it than meets the eye.

El-Rufai Did Not Say Anything New

By Charles Okoh

It is completely heart-rending and morally incomprehensible the level some Nigerians can go to excuse President Muhammadu Buhari for the wreck that his administration has made of Nigeria and Nigerians. His spin doctors would blame anything and everything under the sun for his sloppy performance in office, except the culprits himself. Buhari’s failure is self-inflicted and he should completely take responsibility for the failure of his government.

*Buhari and el-Rufai 

Today, everybody is in one queue or the other. The perennial fuel scarcity has remained with the country for virtually all of the President’s seven-and-half years’ tenure, so far, and everybody and association or union, is blamed for the failure of the petroleum sector, except the substantive minister of petroleum, who happens to be President Buhari.

Buhari: Nigerians Owe Bishop Kukah A Debt Of Gratitude

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

As you read this, it will be exactly three days to the end of the year and 152 days to the end of Muhammadu Buhari’s second and final term in office as president. And Nigerians are hurting badly. In the last seven and half years of his baleful presidency, all the indices of human development – I mean all – have gone south, literally and metaphorically.

*Kukah and Buhari 

Today, Nigerians are neither guaranteed a healthy life, access to knowledge nor a decent standard of living. Paradoxically, the so-called leaders are overreaching themselves in their toadying jaunts that Buhari is the best thing to happen to Nigeria since October 1, 1960. Those who climbed on the rooftops just yesterday to shout themselves hoarse over perceived poor governance have suddenly gone mute.

Bola Tinubu’s ‘Teamship’ Doctrine Is A Scam!

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

“Let me demonstrate here one of those philosophies, doctrines that I believe firmly in – teamship – unbreakable team. To demonstrate that, I will choose the first question and assign to Dele Alake and the second question assign to Nasir el-Rufai and the third question assign to Ben Ayade.”

*Tinubu 

Those were the words of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2023 elections, at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London known as Chatham House on Monday, December 5. In the spirit of Tinubu’s teamship, questions posed to him directly following a paper he presented at the think-tank were farmed out by fiat to surrogates.

Reactions, expectedly, were fast and furious. While well-meaning Nigerians termed, correctly, his “teamship” doctrine an abdication, the APC spin doctors went on overdrive. Alake, former Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Director of Strategic Communications of the APC presidential campaign council, said delegating questions to team members is one of Tinubu’s innovations.

CNN Interview: It’s Now Bola Tinubu’s Turn!

 By Etim Etim 

Peter Obi’s 12-minute interview on CNN last Friday has triggered quite an interesting debate on many social media platforms. His supporters think that Obi gave a good account of himself and has stamped his authority as the nation’s leading presidential candidate. Coming just two days after the NOI poll put him as the front runner in the race, the interview was part of a well-planned sequence of events and positive media exposure for him. 

His trips across major cities in the US and Europe the weeks before have also received positive reviews. A day or so after Obi’s CNN appearance, a picture of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu dozing off at the palace of the Emir of Gombe as the Senate President was speaking turned up. The contrast between the two men couldn’t have been starker and the underlying message was unmistaken. Nigerians have been unsparing in their comments. Somebody wrote: “If this man is elected, his wife and children will be running the government, while he spends time in a foreign hospital’’. 

Is Buhari For Nobody And For Everybody?

By Wole Oladapo

I have read quite a number of analysts of convenience claiming that President Muhammadu Buhari’s response to APC’s defeat in the just concluded Osun State gubernatorial election lends some credence to his claim to be for nobody and for everybody at the same time. Those analysts missed out on the proverbial tortoise that Buhari is, the one that named himself Mr Everybody to have to himself the food served to all visiting animals at a heavenly feast thrown to assuage their hunger. It takes careful observers to correctly read Buhari’s statement as “I am for nobody and I am for myself,” because he, like the tortoise, is Mr Everybody. Like that tortoise, Buhari chooses when to be for nobody and for everybody, absolutely to the gratification of his ego.

*Buhari 

In a necessary detour, let me foreground Buhari’s incurably self-serving nature with a case, the strike action embarked upon by university unions, ASUU, SSANU, NASU, and NAAT. Public universities across the country have been shut for over five months, and the president was unruffled by it. He set up a committee to re-negotiate an already re-negotiated agreement and still refused to accept the recommendations of his own team.

Why Nigerians Are Flocking To Peter Obi

 By Luke Onyekakeyah

The burning desire by Nigerians to see a turnaround in the country underscores the reason why Nigerians are flocking to Peter Obi and the Labour Party.

There is an urgent expectation for a new dawn to manifest in Nigeria without delay to give Nigerians a new lease of life. People are fed up with the status quo. Any political platform that could guarantee the desired rebirth becomes the centre of attraction.

*Peter Obi 

As it were, Nigerians have suffered untold hardship, pain and anguish brought by selfish and greedy politicians. The political and economic system has been ruined. Long-suffering is a norm in Nigeria as people bear the burden of misrule. The virtue of patience has been overstretched beyond the limit and this is understandable.

Understandable in the sense that the country has been raped and bastardised and Nigerians denied the good things of life since independence. The desire for a productive country started on October 1, 1960. That desire did not materialise. Barely six years into independence the country was plunged into a fierce fratricidal civil war that claimed over a million lives and truncated the political and economic trajectory.

Buhari Is Nigeria’s Problem, Not Twitter!

 By Charles Okoh

President Muhammadu Buhari is a despotic leader. He is anything but a democrat. Those who packaged and presented him in traditional attires preparatory to the 2015 general elections knew that altering the package of a product does not have any effect on the product itself. In their desperation to return power to the north, the northern hegemony sold Asiwaju Bola Tinubu a dummy and he bought into it hook, line and sinker.

 *Buhari

In six years, it has become clear to all that you don’t at old age teach a right-handed person how to begin to use the left hand. The only difference between a military rule and our current quasi-democratic arrangement is that agbada, babariga and ishiagu have taken the place of military uniforms. 

President Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) rode on the power of the social and traditional media to get to office. They encouraged civil unrest, protest, organised mass mobilisation through the media to get to office. Now in power, they have suddenly realised that the same media they once put to maximum use to serve their purpose as an opposition party, can no longer be tolerated and must be stopped at all cost.

2019: Tinubu Said He Would Support Buhari Even On A Hospital Stretcher – Saraki

"...However, during those meetings, the point of disagreement between Tinubu and I is that while I expressed my worries that there is nothing on ground to assure me that the administrative style and attitude would change in the next four years in a manner that will enable us to deliver the positive changes we promised to our people, he (Tinubu) expressed a strong opinion that he would rather 'support a Buhari on the hospital stretcher' to get a second term because in 2023, power will shift to the South-west. This viewpoint of Tinubu’s was not only expressed to me but to several of my colleagues. So much for acting in national interest..."

*Saraki and Tinubu 

-----------------------------

Full text of Saraki's Statement

The Tinubu Rhetoric: My Response

By Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki

I have always restrained from joining issues in the media with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and this is based on my respect for him. However, I will not allow him to create a wrong, false and mischievous impression about the reasons for my decision to exit the All Progressives Congress (APC) and present his prejudice as facts for public consumption.

I have been consistent in my complaints to all leaders of the APC, including Tinubu, that a situation where the National Assembly is not constructively engaged or carried along in key policy decisions, particularly those that will eventually require legislative approval, is not in the best interest of the nation. No genuine leader of the legislature will be comfortable that the Presidency will simply write a terse letter to the National Assembly on key issues which the federal legislature is expected to later deliberate upon and give its approval. The Buhari administration consistently treats the legislature with contempt and acts as if the lawmaking body should be an appendage of the Executive. To me, this is unacceptable.

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?

Nigeria: Time To Rework APC

By Alabi Williams

The fortunes of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have plummeted seriously since the party won the 2015 presidential election. The party had drifted aimlessly for three years, and some of us waited for the time someone will halt the drift.

*APC leaders: President Buhari and
Bola Tinubu

 That nearly happened last week, when President Buhari, as the foremost leader of the party told his party men to take another look at the contentious tenure elongation that was gratuitously handed to the John Odigie-Oyegun-led national executive, as well as others in the states and local governments.

On February 27, at the end of its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, the party, without due consultations suddenly extended the tenure of its National Working Committee (NWC), by one year. 

Unlocking The Likes Of Prof Yemi Osinbajo

By Banji Ojewale 

Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is the father of modern-day bureaucratic jurisprudence of Lagos State… He was discovered by Governor Bola Tinubu… He went on to become the state’s Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General in the Third Republic in 1999… He undertook notable reforms in grassroots judicature and in court room procedures… Through his prudent counsel coupled with Tinubu’s own smart politics, Lagos successfully launched the historic creation of 37 local Council and Development Areas and floored the mighty federal resistance of Olusegun Obasanjo’s government… The councils have come to stay due to the firm substructure Yemi Osinbajo laid… Later, he was retrieved from political retirement again by Tinubu to play a role in the central government in the current dispensation. 

*Osinbajo 

But let us be clear about this: history isn’t going to rate Osinbajo on Lagos only in the long run. The ruthless history we all know would demand more from Osinbajo. Had he stayed quietly in the background after his tour of duty in Lagos, he might have tamed the extinct records to favour him. However, having succumbed to the temptation to stage a comeback at a higher level, he must wrestle with the dialectics of politics of an upward plane. History is clad in an iron creed: to whom a higher measure of responsibility is given, less can’t be demanded. 

Buhari’s Health And A Divided Nation

By Paul Orie

From the on set we have developed a culture which has made us irredeemably poised to be at war at any moment. This is a nasty culture Nigerians inherited from the founding fathers of a troubled nation to distort obvious facts. It does seem we are not bothered if Nigeria is tom into shreds.

*Buhari

This is the situation this ugly culture has placed us today with our political leaders not even thinking of reversing it with a culture of consensus building to help the nation grow politically and economically. President Muhammadu Buhari’s ill-health has indeed provided a platform for Nigerians of all shades of opinion, demonstrating how divided we are over critical national issues. Indeed the President’s health has created another source of cleavage among Nigerians especially the political class. There is no doubt that President Buhari  is sick.

His few public appearances shortly before he flew to London to see his medical doctors, attests to this. His picture while receiving the rescued Chibok girls is evident of Mr. President’s ill health. But no one knows exactly what ails him. Is it cancer, brain tumor, kidney or liver problem? What exactly is wrong with the President? Only his Nigerian and London medical teams can answer this question. As the needless debates over the President’s health condition simmers, he is temporarily not on the driver’s seat driving Nigeria to her dream land because of his unknown ailment that has dragged on for almost half of the year 2017.

The Enemy Within And The Cold-Blooded Threat From Arewa (2)

By Femi Fani-Kayode

READ PART ONE HERE

Apart from Afenifere, the OPC and a number of noble and courageous elders and leaders hardly anyone else from the south west has spoken up publicly for the Ifes and the Yoruba in this matter and that is a crying shame. What happened to the voices of the APC Governors in Yorubaland? What happened to the voice of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo? What happened to the voices of the respected Pa Bisi Akande and the great Jagaban of Borgu, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu? We need to hear from all of these distinguished personalities now more than ever before. The celebrated American spy and defector Mr. Edward Snowdon urged public figures and leaders throughout the world to “speak NOT because it is SAFE but because it is RIGHT”. How right he is!

 

*Femi Fani-Kayode

The black American civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King jnr. took it a step further by saying, “in the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends”. Finally, in his famous poem titled ‘The Inferno”, the great poet and immortal writer Dante Alighieri wrote “the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis preserve their neutrality”.

Those who remain silent as their compatriots and kith and kin are butchered have much to learn from the words of these three great and deeply profound men. When faced with the level of orchestrated carnage and the magnitude of pure malevolence and evil that was unleashed on the local indigenous population by the Hausa Fulani in Ile-Ife every single Yoruba leader worth his salt has a solemn duty and obligation before God to condemn it and speak out against it.

Honor and decency demands that much from each and every one of us and, more importantly, we owe it to the dead and to those that were cruelly butchered and cut short in their prime. We can appreciate the fact that the Presidency and the Federal Government will not commiserate with us for those that we lost in the conflict given their rabid pro-Hausa Fulani disposition but we cannot comprehend the devastating and incomprehensible silence that comes from our fellow Yorubas who happen to be leaders, members and supporters of the ruling Hausa Fulani-led APC.

Instead of standing in solidarity with us and publicly condemning those that drew first blood in the carnage, a few identifiable individuals within their ranks who have clearly lost their way and who ought to know better, are talking rubbish, running for cover and exhibiting nothing but good old fashioned trepidation and fear. Worse still they hate those of us that have the courage of our convictions and that are prepared to stand up, pick up the gauntlet and face the challenge.

 One wonders why this is so? Could it be because, as is being speculated, they had assured their hegemonist masters that they had Yorubaland under lock and key and that they could go ahead and kill as many of our people as they pleased? Could it be because they assured them that no-one would challenge them or complain when they did so? Is it possible, as many believe, that things have got that bad and that those from the south west that suffer from this slavish disposition have degenerated to this level? If so then what a tragedy this is! What a shame! What cowardice! What treachery!