Constituency Projects: Legislators Manipulating Nigerians

 By Tonnie Iredia

Federal legislators  in Nigeria especially senators imagine that they are the smartest people in Africa, South of the Sahara and even North of the Equator. Perhaps they are actually smart considering the ease with which they get away with a legion of transparently repulsive allegations. Indeed, no one has been able to hold our senators down to the undesirable financial transactions that people know and see about them as a group.

When analysts raised the alarm many years back that Nigerian legislators were the highest paid in the world, they published their basic salaries which were not excessive but successfully hid their several secret allowances from sundry sources. They allegedly got paid for ghost legislative aides but  no one could prove it beyond reasonable doubt; just as they virtually hypnotised public officers from going public with their dirty oversight functions.  

G-5: The Fallacy Of Wike’s ‘Contribution’ To Tinubu’s ‘Victory’

 By Olu Fasan

Last week, Nyesom Wike, the outgoing governor of Rivers State, gave Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s putative next president, extravagant welcome to Port Harcourt, the state capital. Tinubu was in Port Harcourt to open a Magistrate’s Court complex that Wike named after his wife. Wike declared a public holiday and closed down shops so that Rivers people could turn out to welcome Tinubu. He later hosted Tinubu to a grand reception, a lavish banquet! Surely, those acts were an extraordinary abuse of power.

*Wike welcomes Tinubu to Port Harcourt

How would you explain a sitting governor naming a monument, built with state resources, after his wife? How would you explain a state governor declaring a public holiday, closing businesses, thereby crippling commercial activities, so that someone could “open” the monument? And would any responsible would-be president be part of such abuse of office and waste of state resources?

The Wailing Of Madam Oluremi Tinubu

By Modiu Olaguro

"For what Ricardo foresaw was the end of a theory of society in which everyone moved together up the escalator of progress. Unlike Smith, Ricardo saw that the escalator worked with different effects on different classes, that some rode triumphantly on the top, while others were carried up a few steps and then were kicked back down to the bottom. Worse yet, those who kept the escalator moving were not those who rose with its motion, and those who got the full benefit of the ride did nothing to earn their reward. And to carry the metaphor one step further, if you looked carefully at those who were ascending to the top, you could see that all was not well here either; there was a furious struggle going on for a secure place on the stairs.”

—The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers by Robert L. Heilbroner.

*Oluremi Tinubu

Remi Tinubu’s outburst on the seeming side-line of her hubby, Bola Tinubu, by the Muhammadu Buhari administration illustrates the existence of an acrimonious struggle for dominance by actors in the political space. It connotes the very fact that the poor masses of Nigeria are not the only victims of the serial subterfuge by politicians who find their thumbs useful before elections only to find their faces unworthy after.

How APC Betrayed Buhari

By Joe Igbokwe

I was shocked to the marrows when I heard that some APC Senators asked the National Working Committee of the Party led by the National Chairman of the Party Chief Odigie Oyegun to prevail on President Buhari to drop all charges against Bukola Saraki at the Code of Conduct corruption trial before they stop sabotaging the presidency. Words failed me when it dawned on me that this potentially dangerous demand is coming from some APC Senators who are supposed to be the agents of change we promised Nigerians while seeking their mandate in 2015.

*Buhari, Tinubu and Saraki 

I reflected on the event of the past 24years from 1993 when we elected Chief MKO Abiola to bring hope to Nigerians and how he was crushed and decimated by demonic and satanic forces after five years struggle to defend and sustain the mandate. Time and space will not permit me to recall the quantum of energies expended to defend the mandate for five years, the wars, on the streets, the casualties including MKO Abiola and the late wife Kudirat Abiola, and many others, the damage to the national project, the devastation of our economy, the balkanization of the political entity called Nigeria, the alienation by the international community making Nigeria a pariah nation, and the ethnic division it visited on Nigeria.

After killing Chief Abiola in July 7, 1998, the same satanic and demonic forces still bent on decimating Nigeria further decided to foist PDP and retired General Obasanjo on Nigerians. In sixteen years, from 1999 to 2015 the same forces wasted huge resources running into hundreds of billions of dollars earned in times of oil boom. The unconscionable looters and unrepentant thieves diverted and stashed away these huge resources into private pockets. These funds have been traced to private accounts both at home and abroad, traced to real estates both in Nigeria and abroad, and traced to farms and some buried underground. The rest is now history.

Before We Destroy Nigeria

By Malachy Uzendu

Nigerians are superbly interesting set of people. Every moment presents itself as placebo for throwing away serious punches. We seem to love to be dribbled; we enjoy flash in the pan situations. We seem not to have deep thinking faculties. Our handling of situations is always on the ephemeral plane.

*Buhari 

A few months ago, the issue on the lip of Nigerians were “Senate Standing Rules” forgery or no for­gery; whether it was the national leadership of the ruling All Pro­gressives Congress (APC) that holds the prerogative of determin­ing who becomes a principal offic­er of the National Assembly or not. It did not matter that people who were elected to that arm of govern­ment from the different constitu­encies in the country have even if we chose to call it some form of pedigree, neither did it matter that they have a contract with their var­ious constituencies. A privileged few must determine who becomes what and what happens there.

Nigerians made a lot of noise on this issue: some people called for the public execution of Sena­tors Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekw­eremadu. Some people who were obsessed by their self righteousness even postulated that National As­sembly members should not on their own aspire to any portfolio in that arm of government but should wait for portfolio to be assigned to them by the executive arm of gov­ernment either directly or indirect­ly through the instrumentality of the ruling political party.

Conversely, some persons who hold alternative view points insist­ed that capitulating to that level was dictatorial, diversionary, myopic and banal and had nothing to do with the essence of true democracy.

After several months of legal fireworks, propaganda and pub­lic odium for Saraki and Ekwere­madu, the executive arm of gov­ernment, withdrew the forgery lawsuit slammed on the two prin­cipal officers. To Nigerians it was a matter of case closed; no qualms, life moves on to the next issue. The master has spoken and so be it. The public never bother about the eco­nomic and social costs. This was a typical case of the executive dis­tracting the legislature and the pub­lic, the polity pays the price.

Sack Your Grossly Incompetent Economic Team – Dino Melaye Tells Buhari

PRESS RELEASE 

Deeply worried by the poor state of the economy which has brought unprecedented hardship and hunger on the masses of the Nigerian people, a federal lawmaker, Senator Dino Melaye (APC Kogi West) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to take urgent and drastic measures, including the immediate sack of three prominent members of his Economic Team as the solution-precedent to reboot the ailing economy.

*President Buhari and Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun

In a Statement in Abuja Sunday, Melaye said the President must shake up his Cabinet, and accused most of the members of gross incompetence, inexcusable ineptitude and a distressing lack of capacity to deliver on the mandate of their ministries/Agencies.

Those to face the axe immediately if the economy must be effectively rebooted to deliver on the Change Agenda of the present administration, in the estimation  of Melaye include the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, Budget and National Planning Minister, Senator Udoma  Udo Udoma and the governor of the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele. 

" At the moment, it must be crystal clear to all discerning minds that the President's widely-acclaimed magical body language has lost its presumed  aura and efficacy. His  no-nonsense demeanor is equally neither instilling fear nor commanding respect and loyalty from amongst his cabinet members. It is therefore obvious that the time for barking is over, now is the time to bite and boot out all those who have demonstrated, in the past several months, a crass lack of capacity to effectively carry out the functions of their office", Melaye declared, stressing:

" The Finance Minister has not only displayed gross incompetence on the Job, she also lacks the basic and rudimentary grasp of economic fundamentals necessary to run a critical sector of the Nigerian economy like the Finance Ministry. It is time for her to go now and pave way for a qualified and experienced person to steer the Nigerian economy away from the dark woods it has sunk presently under her stewardship".

On Udoma Udo Udoma, he stated : "To be sure, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma is a very charismatic man, an accomplished lawyer, and a quintessential gentleman with a fairly untainted reputation. In everyday parlance, he is a good man. But the critical job of Budget and National Planning Minister for a huge country like Nigeria, with her prevailing economic challenges requires much more than being a good man with a great personality. 

NASS: An Anniversary, A Farce

By Alabi Williams  

This 8th National Assembly, on June 9, rolled out drums to mark the first anniversary of its inauguration; it was an eventful year. It was a year when the current leadership of the legislature, particularly the Senate, weathered severe storm sowed by it, but watered viciously from the outside. Their resort to celebration and arrogant chest-thumping was not so much about how the NASS quickly transformed the business of lawmaking within one year, and how that had made the country more governable. It was also not about how well life has become more meaningful in the last one year for ordinary Nigerians. It was more about Bukola Saraki, the Senate president and how he managed to survive the plot by his own party to wrest the mace from his grip.

*Speaker Dogara and Senate President Saraki 

Remembering how deftly Saraki and his loyalists valiantly engineered that parliamentary maneuver to take over the leadership sure deserves several backslaps. It was a historical move; hence the entire anniversary plenary was dedicated to recollecting how the tricks were played, and to bond together in the assurance not to break ranks, despite the shift in the battle from the floor to the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

The effusions were quite entertaining. Senators took turns to pour encomiums on that scheme and how deft hands have kept it from slipping. Minority leader and former governor of Akwa Ibom, Godswill Akpabio, poked fun at how the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) helped to install and stabilize Saraki, while his party tugged at his cloak to unmask him. Dino Melaye, ever boisterous, promised Saraki would never be unveiled, despite the distractions from outside. It was all smiles on the face of Saraki, whom he praised to high heavens.

 Indeed, victory is sweet, and for some, it does not matter the schemes that were deployed to fetch it. But there were some in the Red chamber who sat demurely all through the proceedings. They knew it was sham, but they have to live with it and wait for another time. They were outsmarted on that morning of June 9, 2015, when they followed another summon to the International Conference Centre (ICC), Abuja, instead of coming to the NASS after President Buhari, who allegedly issued the invite, had proclaimed the legislature.

The truth of that mix up will take time to unravel. Those who sent sms to invite APC senators to ICC knew what they were up to, to apparently distract the larger chunk of members from participating in the election of presiding officers. And the few APC senators, including Saraki, who shunned the invitation, and decided instead to sneak into the Red Chamber well disguised, also knew what they intended to achieve. Either way, what was at play was plain crookedness and not chivalry. The Senate has remained haunted since that episode, unable to be majestic and to rise up to the crucial challenges of a changed political atmosphere. Despite their huff and puff, they have not affected governance in any remarkable way.

Some people saw it coming in the manner the party in government was artificially and untidily strewed. In 2014, APC was all about how to win elections. There was no time and foresight to indulge in the luxury of an audit to test the integrity of its component units. After it won election, the next legitimate aspiration of members was how to allocate the booty. By that time, it was too late to enforce orders. Saraki and some people decided to help themselves to plum offices.

Goodbye Nigeria!

By Idowu Ohioze

Recent occurrences, many of which many Nigerians would identify with, have led me to reach an arguably inevitable conclusion: Nigeria is a country on an unarrestable decline.

*President Buhari 

You may or may not share my rather pessimistic opinion depending on your ethnic or political affiliation or religious persuasion since most Nigerians are easily given to assessing public policies and socio-political trends on destructively bias yardsticks namely –and in order of subjective preference - the ethnicity, religious or political origins of the principal protagonists.

My conclusion is the outcome of a deductive reasoning that is based on an analysis of the essentials that impede national progress or are known to have orchestrated the demise of known ancient empires and nation-states.

In the following short essays on a range of issues, I make, hopefully, a string of compelling arguments to support my hypothesis of a disappearing political construct.

The genie is out of the bottle. We just have to figure out how the demise of Nigeria will affect us as individuals

A Killing Field?

If you consider that the emergence of Boko Haram insurgency was sadly the failure of government at each level in Nigeria, you certainly should be alarmed that cattle rearers are wrecking havoc in parts of Nigeria unchallenged by the government.

Confrontations between landowners and heavily armed nomadic cattle rearers have resulted in numerous deaths in Benue, Enugu and other parts of Nigeria but the closest to a government response has been a tepid statement by Lai Mohammed, the federal minister of information.

Rumour of the presence, at the National Assembly, of a draft grazing bill with equally rumoured provisions for statutorily delineated grazing lands within states, has so far been denied by some legislators but the question of Nigerians’ age-long vulnerability within its borders has been brought to the forefront of the debate by the wanton destruction of lives and properties by individuals who are, disturbingly, above the law.

Some state governors have vowed to resist cattle rearers within their territories. In fact, in the south-east, a governor has hinted at resuscitating and re-arming the dreaded Bakassi boys in defence of the citizens of his state against terrorizing cattle herders. As it is commonly the level to which such matters of dire consequences degenerate to in Nigeria, some ethnicists – among them the influential Sultan of Sokoto and Senator Godswill Akpabio – promptly disclaim the erring cattle rearers as Nigerian Fulanis but foreigners from bordering countries.

Who Needs Patricia Etteh’s House?

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye 
Not long after the N628 million contract scandal involving the leadership of the House of Representatives exploded in the face of Nigerians, Vanguard newspaper (August 29, 2007) carried an interview with Dino Melaye, the Chairman of the House Committee on Information and National Orientation. Mr. Melaye who has unduly advertised himself as one of the loudest supporters of the House Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Bunmi Etteh, in her current travails, had, in the course of the interview, startled Nigerians with a very loaded and overly distasteful statement that spoke volumes about the quality of minds that “make laws” for Nigerians at the nation’s Lower Legislative House.

Said Melaye: “This woman [Etteh] told us, on the floor of the House, that she’s got two boobs. That the old [House Members] can suck one while the new would suck one. Honestly speaking, we are sucking. We are enjoying the sucking. We are doing that right now.”