Fulani Herdsmen And (Il)logic Of Self-Defence

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It is now over two weeks since President Muhammadu Buhari ordered security operatives to arrest and prosecute illegal arm-bearers. The president first gave the order towards the end of last month during a National Security Council meeting attended by the defence minister, the service chiefs, among others. He repeated the order when he visited Nasarawa State this month.

Here, we are confronted with two possibilities. One is that the order has been fully complied with by security operatives, leading to the mass arrest and prosecution of illegal arm-bearers. The other is that the order has been completely disdained by security operatives. Sadly, the second possibility is the reality today. Nothing underscores this more than the fact that herdsmen who chiefly belong to the category of illegal arm-bearers are still on the prowl despite the presidential order. Indeed, the order has rather become a source of impetus to them to illegally bear arms and use them to inflict pain and death on their victims. 

Nigeria: Time To Remove Muhammadu Buhari From Power

By Remi Oyeyemi

"There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction." – John F. Kennedy

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." – Benjamin Franklin

*Buhari 

Dateline - February 11, 2018. As I woke up this morning, I got a message from one of our revere leaders in Yorùbá Nation. The message, not something one would have expected on a Sunday morning, but nevertheless, I got this message. I was confident that this elderly person, the way I have known him, must have considered the timing and its propriety before sending the message.

He must have been very enraged. His being a father and grandfather must have been egregiously violated. The milk of human kindness flowing in his veins must have belched with a high degree of contamination. His marrows of humaneness must have erupted with disgust and unbelief. He must have been excessively repulsed to the point that he felt the message must get to me. And quickly too.

2019 Elections And Nigeria’s Future

By Matthew Ozah

Elections will be held in 2019. That simple statement of fact ought not to send shivers down the spines of anybody. But, it’s scary going by the way and manners elections usually take shape in this part of the world where most politicians regard it as a do-or-die affair. It is even more chaotic if a rising and promising young politician challenges an incumbent or powers from the old set-up.

However, one safe prediction for the 2019 elections is that, the biggest problems we face as a nation will not disappear overnight. Without mincing words, that will be the metaphor and emphasis for visionless politicians during the campaign. This is because politicians use all sorts of logic and promise to woo the electorate. Just like President Muhammadu Buhari has used restructuring, corruption fight, payments of N5,000 stipends to jobless youth, stable electricity and steady fuel pump price among others to water the pathway and win his ‘change’ election slogan in 2015. Therefore, Nigerians should not be surprised to see political parties fly all sorts of kites in the name of promises to better the lives of the people.

Nigeria's Unending Leadership Crisis

By Dan Amor

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo's recent bombing of President Muhammadu Buhari does not make him a better candidate for national heroism. After all, the outcome of his letter to former President Goodluck Jonathan is the person whom he has just attacked. If care is not taken, the next president in 2019 might even be worse than Buhari. This is not a death wish for my beloved country. Never. Far from it!

*Babangida, Buhari, Obasanjo, Shagari and Jonathan

But Nigeria is a nation of experts without roots. We are always creating tacticians who are blind to strategy and strategists who cannot even take a step. And when the culture has finished its work the institutions handcuff the infirmity. But what is at the centre of the panic which is our national culture since we are not yet free to choose our leaders? Seeing how ineligible dunces who don’t even understand the secret of their private appeal, talk-less of what the nation needs jostle for power, I realize all over again that Nigeria is an unhappy contract between the Rich and the Poor. It is not that Nigeria is altogether hideous, it is even by degrees pleasant, but for an honest observer, there is never any salt in the wind.

On President Buhari, I Stand With Obasanjo

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Again, we are in the political silly season. Not that it just kicked off. No, Nigeria is a country in a permanent state of politicking. In reality, there is never time for governance. The end of one election circle jumpstarts another and the actions of incumbents are informed not by the desire to deliver on good governance but the need to win the next election.

*Obasanjo and Buhari 

So, ministers and board members of government agencies are appointed not on the basis of capacity and competence, but who has the political muscle and “structure” to deliver on the next election. Ditto for heads of security agencies who are appointed on extraneous considerations such as who helped in rigging the previous election and who can be counted upon in the next election.

Can Obasanjo’s ‘Letter Bomb’ Cause Buhari Electoral Fatality?

By Fredrick Nwabufo

 I was in a meeting when former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s “letter bomb” rent the “news-sphere”. When I received the news alert, I hastened my business because I was seized by capricious anxiety to read the former president’s missive.

*Obasanjo and Buhari 

I must say, Obasanjo has taken the art of letter-writing to an enchanted stratosphere. And I admire his preferred means of intervening in Nigeria’s socio-political malaise. 

Nigeria: Now An Abattoir Under President Buhari

By Reno Omokri

In July 2012, clashes between natives and herdsmen reached a head in Plateau state leading to tens of deaths on both sides. Then President Goodluck Jonathan, when briefed about the situation insisted that there wouldn’t be such impunity under his leadership and immediately ordered the army to go to the affected communities and fish out the perpetrators and bring them to book.

The military immediately obeyed the then President’s orders and sent troops to Barkin Ladi Local Government Area. They ordered all residents to leave their residence for temporary accommodation provided for them so they could conduct a joint air and ground operation to flush out the armed herdsmen who had been suspected of killing innocent Nigerians. 

Rebirth Of PDP And The Challenge To Buhari

By Yakubu Mohammed

By which ever means the panjandrums of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, were able to patch it up, their national convention, the first since its ouster from power in 2015, has come and gone leaving in its trail the usual post- convention trauma that features some teeth gnashing, some wailings, some threats, real and imaginary and lots of conjectures about what would be and what would not be thereafter. 

But nobody, not even the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, can dismiss what the opposition party, the PDP, successfully put up as a non-event. What is left now is to see how the PDP executives under the chairmanship of Uche Secondus, manage themselves from now through to the 2019 presidential election.

Rotimi Amaechi Is An Ignoramus: Here Are Facts To Prove It

By Reno Omokri

It is quite possible that Mr. Rotimi Amaechi is losing his marbles otherwise why else would he be asking former President Goodluck Jonathan to account for the $65 billion that former President Olusegun Obasanjo left in the Excess Crude Account when there was never any such amount? Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria who served under his tenure, Professor Charles Soludo are both alive and journalists can take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act signed into Law by former President Jonathan to verify from them if there was ever any $65 billion in the Excess Crude Account.

*Rotimi Amaechi

 Rotimi Amaechi is a notorious ignoramus who speaks without thinking and it is suspected that he is going senile. The reason I say so is because Rotimi Amaechi as Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum is precisely the reason why the Excess Crude Account had to be phased out and below are the facts:

Buhari’s Mission To Kano: Loud Dress Rehearsal For 2019

By Martins Oloja

There is no need discerning the president’s body language about 2019 presidential election declaration anymore. Did you read his leaps, or hip lips? The taciturn Muhammadu the soldier and Buhari the politician will surely run – as long as his health remains stable as it is at the moment. The Mission to Kano, his stronghold, last week was a loud dress rehearsal. And the people of the ancient town have signalled to the only politician they can trust to take the plunge again. He has been told (in Kano) that even ten Wazirin Adamawas can’t remove any steam from the political support that the epitome of loyalty called Governor Umar Abdullahi Ganduje can guarantee for him in 2019.

*President Buhari in Kano. Right is Gov Ganduje

Ganduje is indeed a politician in whom there is no guile. Buhari can always trust him to deliver more than two million votes in 2019. What is more, we may have been carried away by some infantile sentimentality in the southern zone that some extreme hunger and pervasive poverty in the land now can erode the Buhari’s once solid base in the core north. Some boisterous social media analysts may have told us that no one wants to hear about Sai Baba slogan again because of anger nurtured by hunger in the north. This may not be true, after all.

On Maina, Blame President Buhari

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Aside from the tragedy of the monumental failure of the President Muhammadu Buhari government, there is also that of the barefacedly audacious attempts to still project him as glowing in the halo of incorruptibility that some have associated him with. To his diehard loyalists, it is not Buhari who has betrayed the high ideals of transparency he has espoused before the public but only those whom he has given responsibilities who are prevented by their greed from living up to the expectations of their high offices.

*President Buhari 

This is the trajectory we are confronted with again as the public is scandalised by the heist and remorselessness of the former Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Abdullahi Abdulrasheed Maina, and the complicity of high-profile officials of the Buhari government. In the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Maina was given the responsibility of bringing reform into the pension system to break the cycle of pensioners dying broke in their post-service years because of their inability to access their pensions. But the reformer soon turned away from his official assignment and became preoccupied with the looting of the billions that he was supposed to guard against pecuniary predators. Before he was caught, Maina had already allegedly stolen N100 billion. Maina was not at a loss as regards how to avail himself of this haul. He launched into a splurge and this civil servant who was an assistant director before he was made to manage the pension system became the owner of posh houses and companies in choice areas of Abuja and other parts of the country. Yes, Maina is presumed innocent until he is declared guilty by a competent law court. But he declared himself guilty before the public. Instead of making himself available to the Senate and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to clear himself of the charges of egregious corruption he fled abroad.

President Buhari’s Race To Develop The North

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

With the seemingly irreversible flight of a pan-Nigerian vision from the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, he continues to flail about in a bid to give the impression to the less discerning among us that he is committed to the unity of the nation. He emotes about the censure of hate speech that threatens the oneness of the country that was cobbled together by some foreign invaders and that has remained so for over a century. He fumes at the citizens’ obliviousness of not only his visions but projects that have overwhelmed the landscape, all aimed at improving their lot that has been negated by years of neglect and misrule of past state helmsmen.

*President Buhari 

Yet, what the citizens see beyond this veneer of Buhari’s self-confessed love for his country is the urgent need for him to preserve the nation not by being obsessed with the hunt for some elusive enemies of their collective wellbeing who spew hate. Rather, he must consider himself as the enemy of the nation whose actions have worsened the fissures which his utterances have inflicted.

In the past two years since Buhari emerged as the nation’s president, he has translated into reality his apocalyptic prediction conveyed in the mathematical absurdity of consigning those who gave him five per cent of his votes to immiseration while sparing those who gave him 97 per cent. This bifurcation of the citizenry for the purpose of punishing some and rewarding others has clearly stoked mutual suspicion. 

Is President Buhari’s Integrity Overrated?

By Martins Oloja

This thing called integrity is the most powerful weapon of mass distraction General Muhammadu Buhari’s point men used to win most supporters’ hearts in 2015. Yes, their intangible but lethal missile got us at our very point of our need as a nation. We had then really needed a man of integrity, a good Nigerian indeed in whom there was no guile. We wanted a clean and strong vessel who could rescue us from the years the locusts had eaten at least up to that point. And most of us found a man we could trust in the lanky General from Daura. And in March, 2015, the election agency we all believed said he (PMB) defeated the then incumbent President, Goodluck Jonathan, who also meekly joined the nation in congratulating Mr. Integrity who trounced him to the delight of many.

*Buhari 

But is appears that barely two and half years after the election, the arrogant illiterate of the 21st century around ‘the man of integrity’ are making most of us to have a rethink that the integrity of the taciturn former head of state may have been massively overrated after all, just as Collin J. Browne, an organisational culture expert, noted in a 2015 classic titled, “Integrity is massively overrated”.

Meanwhile, the concept of “the illiterate of the 21st century” is not original to me too. It is to Alvin Toffler I have quoted several times here. The sociologist and writer on organization development and leadership says, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn”.

President Buhari: Stop Blaming Jonathan And Learn To Accept Responsibility

By Reno Omokri 

It is rather unfortunate that instead of sticking to the facts in its tiff with Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Federal Government decided to drag former President Jonathan into a matter he knows nothing about by stating that "We inherited a country in tatters- its economy, its security and its social relations. President Buhari deserves credit for rebuilding what has been destroyed."

*Buhari

Thankfully, no less a personality than the President's own confidante, Professor Itse Sagay, has revealed that the APC is an 'evil' party, built on propaganda. This recent statement by Garba Shehu only serves to corroborate that statement.

For one, President Muhammadu Buhari DID NOT inherit a country in tatters. Rather, on May 29th, 2015, the day he was sworn in, President Buhari inherited a nation that was the largest economy in Africa and the 24th largest economy in the world.

Nigeria: Is The Past The Future?

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Since the failure of the President Muhammadu Buhari government became intolerably manifest, a noticeable feature of discourse in the public space is its polarisation. In one camp are those who argue that the present status quo is precisely what the country needs and in the opposing camp are those who seek its replacement with a political system that existed in the past. Indeed, the Buhari’s years have been marked by the citizens’ hankering for the past and the rejection of the present. Having appropriated the past as the only means of corporate survival, they want to make it not only the anchor for the present but also the future.

Clearly, we are not witnessing this laudation of the past for the first time. Ever since the oil boom evaporated and the country has been afflicted with a governance crisis, the Nigerian people have often sought to recover a past that they consider a golden era. They do not seek the co-opting of only some useful values from the past into the enrichment of the present and the future. No, they want a wholesale displacement of the past with the present and the future. In this regard, their march to their collective destiny has often been disrupted by prolonged moments of contemplation of the desirability of replacing their present with the past. 

Of Rats And Rodents Driving President Buhari Out Of Office

By Mike Ozekhome

It is a very shameful and disgraceful statement that emanated from the presidency to the effect that President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB), after a whole 105 days abroad on medical grounds, cannot work from his office because of rats and rodents. So, a whole Julius Berger, the German construction giant has to be called in to drive them away and repaint the office! This statement further derides and shames Nigeria as a country.

Why didn't the same or similar rodents pursue Olusegun Obasanjo, Umar Musa Yar'adua or Goodluck Jonathan during their presidency? For truth, there is another mini office at the villa quite different from the official residence and main office. Let PMB work from there.

Let's see our president working, not through still photo shopping. For how long will this government take the Nigerian citizens for a ride and for robots ? Who told the image makers we are as brainless as they are? Don't they know that lies have expiry date and that propaganda cannot substitute for image making?

Nigeria: Jonathan’s House As Metaphor

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

So former President Goodluck Jonathan house was plundered? While this is a personal misfortune to the former president, it serves as a fortuitous reminder to both the leaders and the citizens of the demands of nation building amid the despoliation of the national patrimony by those paid to watch over it.

*Dr. Goodluck Jonathan 

At the outset, we need to state in unequivocal terms that our humanity is by no means vitalised by the troubles of others or what the Germans would identify as Schadenfreude. At the same time, we owe no fidelity to the philosophy of not speaking ill of the dead which deprives us of the reflection that could yield useful lessons for our own lives. Thankfully, in this case, we do not speak ill of a dead Jonathan but a man who has not yet passed the bloom of life and still has so much ahead of him. You need not doubt this – think of Presidents Muhammadu Buhari and Donald Trump who offered to serve their nations in their seventies and the point becomes clear.

Jonathan’s four-bedroom duplex in Abuja was stripped bare of all valuables. These included six television sets, three refrigerators, one gas cooker, furniture, electronics, toilet and electrical fittings and internal doors and frames. The suspected masterminds of this larceny are those charged with the responsibility of guarding the house.

Jonathan has publicly confirmed reports that the house was burgled. But this public confirmation might have been spurred by the need to dispel wild speculations about the caches of luxuries in the house that threw into stark relief his implacable acquisitive character. This public acknowledgement only came after he had reported the case to the inspector-general of police who did not waste time in arresting the policemen who are suspected to have committed the crime.

What’s Prof Osinbajo Not telling Us?

By Bolaji Tunji

The Vice and Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, during the week paid a short visit to President Muhammadu Buhari. It was a very short visit which lasted less than 24 Hours. The man left the country on Tuesday and was back by Wednesday to preside over the Federal Executive a Council (FEC) meeting.

*Osinbajo

The Vice President’s visit is just one of the many visits to the President in recent time. The president’s wife, Aisha Buhari, had equally paid a visit to her husband including other prominent Nigerians, amidst rumours that the first lady had been shielded from seeing her husband during previous visits.

In all these, the story had been that the president was responding to treatment and would soon come back. This is contrary to information from the opposition figures that the President is on life support machine. Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, had said that the president was on life support machine. His statement was further amplified by former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode.

Indeed, the Ekiti state governor went further to state that he would release some pictures of the president on life support machine to corroborate his claims.

While President Buhari Is Away

By Sunny Ikhioya

There is a need for us to understand the context under which the country is being run presently. Only a fool will have a death wish for Mr. President because it will benefit the country more for President Buhari to stay alive, otherwise, the consequences will be too grievous to imagine. But, we tend to over dramatise basic issues, so, things that are supposed to be normal in every society becomes complex here.

 

*Buhari 

The more open and transparent a leader is to the people, the less controversial his actions and inaction are to them. Sickness is normal to man. That the President is sick should not be a big deal to the citizens. That there is so much cover up is what boggles the mind. Even in his present condition, the intrigues and scheming are ongoing amongst politicians, the ruling party, The All Progressive Party, APC, is  not exempted.

Everyone is trying to take advantage of the situation. So, when you attempt to point out the flaws in this administration, people attribute it to supporting corruption. Sonala Olumhese’s  column of Sunday February 19 2017 titled “As Ibori Stirs Buhari’s Tea” opined that the presidency have up to nine media advisers and assistants, working “to react to all media content critical to the President and attack/demonise/smear the people critical of the President”.

We have stretched the debate for so long that focus is lost. From what have been happening these past weeks, it is safe to conclude that President Buhari is being shielded from the true situation of things in the country, it is either that, or, he is ignoring the truth, which I doubt. Why am I in all of these rigmarole? One has noticed that there is a subtle change going on in the attitude to governance these past few weeks; not that of arrogance or fear, but, a positive change that is.

The type or kind that the people have been waiting for these past two years, which  has eluded them. Things appear to be working, albeit positively. If the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,  failed us in the past, it does not guarantee a repeat by the APC and this is what those sympathetic to the cause of this government have failed to realise. The people wanted positive change.

The Hypocrisy Of President Buhari And El-Rufai, His Mini Me

By Reno Omokri

 With President Muhammadu Buhari's lawyer's ₦500,000 'gift' to Justice Adeniyi Ademola while the certificate case was being tried before that judge and with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation's Grasscuttergate scandal, can we all stop pretending and accept that the anti corruption war is dead?

*President Buhari and Gov El-Rufai

I believe I now know the reason why God allowed President Buhari to come back to power. It was to expose him for who he really is. Not a saint, but a hypocrite!

A hypocrite of the highest order. A so called anti corruption crusader who writes letters to cover his corrupt Secretary to the Government of the Federation and whose lawyer gives gifts to a justice that is being tried for collecting gifts from others. Do as I say, not as I do!

Things were already bad enough until the President's spokesman released his statement trying to justify the 'gift'! 

When Femi Adesina, President Muhammadu Buhari's spokesman, says PMB's lawyers ₦500,000 payment to Justice Ademola was a 'gift' not a bribe he must think that Nigerians are on the bottom of the ladder in the rational thinking food chain!

So if I take a bribe and call it a 'gift', according to Femi Adesina, it automatically transforms from corruption to 'gift'? So President Buhari believes in the Transformation Agenda after all! Who would have thought so! 

So why can President Buhari's lawyer give gifts but Andrew Yakubu cannot accept 'gift'? The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission should just release everybody they are trying because they took 'gifts' not bribe. After all, President Buhari and his lawyer have shown us the way!

The Justice Ademola that is currently being tried is accused of taking bribes because people gave him gifts. So why were their gifts proceeds of corruption and Lawyer Awodein's (Buhari's lawyer) a proceed of friendship?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a bribe is defined thus: