The Political Structures Of Corruption

 By M.C. Asuzu

Recently, there have been discussions in this country concerning politicians who have no political structures and those with them, as the veritable determinants of those who will be able to win elections and otherwise. But what keeps coming back to the mind of some of us who are incapable of any partisan political persuasions is this: what structures are the people saying these things thinking of? 

What do political structures by a single politician mean? Is it individual politicians or the group of people who wish to work together under specific political ideologies that develop such political structures? These organisational groups of people are simply called political parties, is it not? So, when politicians are talking of personal political structures (but not those of political parties), it becomes necessary to examine what these people may be having in mind and what it is that they themselves really have done in those regards.

Nigeria: A Lazy President Calling Youths Lazy

By Frank Ijege
I meet and interact with youths on a daily basis and I can tell you that they are not lazy; majority of them have gone to school and there are no jobs to engage them. Many others want to go to school, but cannot because public education has been placed at a level that no child of the poor should aspire for.

*President Buhari 

Joseph is a graduate of Sociology, with a second class upper division. This is what we here, call good result. After national service, ‎no job was forth coming. He opted to go back to school for his master degree, which he obtained with a distinction. This was two years ago. No job. No nothing!

The Moral Debris Of Ex-President Jonathan’s Looted Home

By Louis Odion, FNGE

Vanguard editorial, in my view, belongs in the heavyweight echelon of Nigeria's commentariat. The weight of its punch is to be judged not only by the resonance of the message over the years; but also its economy of phrase - the uncanny facility to say a lot in so few words, packing so much into so little a space.

Dr. Goodluck Jonathan 

But its edition of August 3 must rank among those that fall miserably short of the high value it normally espouses. In the comment entitled, "Looting Of Ex-President Jonathan's Home", the newspaper said every thing expected against the cops-turned-burglars and those who trafficked the stolen goods. 

What would have been a fine argument against yet another iniquity of man was however sullied when, in the next breath, it openly sought to either deny anyone the right to outrage against Jonathan on any count whatsoever or make a villain outright of those unable to express pity or empathy with the victim on this matter. 

It wrote: "No decent human being can claim that what took place in ... President Jonathan's house is excusable on any ground. All people of conscience must rise up and condemn evil, no matter who is involved. The atmosphere of hatred which seems to have seized the people of this country by the throat must be made to give way to empathy for one another, as that is the only way we can build a united, strong country."

President Buhari And His Rumoured Death

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

An impediment to the quest for the full return of history to schools is our fear of excavating the seamy past of our heroes. We want history to be returned to our schools so that we can learn about our past and its avatars and draw some useful lessons for an effective response to our contemporary challenges. But we are trapped in the tragic paradox of the fear of being confronted with the foibles and peccadilloes of the past heroes who shaped our history. This paradox is amply expressed in the warning not to speak ill of the dead.

We are even forbidden from speaking ill of the living. Fawn on the living, credit them with the virtues they are crassly bereft of and there would not be any problems. But attempt to draw attention to their less than stellar qualities and a kerfuffle is provoked. There is a grimmer possibility of this if the subjects are public office holders. They would deploy all their might to teach the daring offenders the lessons that they should not traduce a big Nigerian. With the complicity of the police, they would throw them into jail where they would be forgotten.

It is in this context that we can situate the developments around the rumoured death of President Muhammadu Buhari. To be sure, it is wrong to wish anybody dead. For neither do we have the power to take the life of someone we did not create nor know when that person would die. Again, we are reminded of Michel de Montaigne’s warning that we should not consider anyone happy until his death. In other words, no human being, no matter his or her station in life is immune from the storms and tempests of life. Thus, we must not be deterred from discussing the rumoured death of the president and appropriating some useful lessons from it.

After all, other leaders like Nnamdi Azikiwe were said to have died while they were still alive. Even in Zimbabwe, there have been many rumours of death about Life President Robert Mugabe. Mugabe who is amused at the rumours has quipped that he has resurrected more often than Jesus Christ. And just recently, one Pastor Patrick Mugadza prophesied that the 92-year-old Mugabe would die on October 17, 2017. And unsurprisingly, Mugadza has been taken to court. But the joke is on Mugabe as Mugadza’s lawyer has said that the pastor was only relaying a message from God and the police had to prove that God is not its originator. 

The reactions of Nigerians to the rumoured death of the president are a mix of genuine shock and barefaced humbug. How dare malevolent persons claim that the president is dead? hollered some. If our president had reacted like this to the recurrent wastage of lives in the country, we would have disincentivised the propensity for willful killing by fellow citizens or through government neglect. We glimpse our president’s lack of respect for human life through his protection of those who allegedly stole the money meant for starving and sexually exploited internally displaced persons. Obviously, these lives are not as precious as the president’s. This is why despite the outrage at the sleaze of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Lawal Babachir, Buhari is begging the Senate to allow him to stay in office.