Rochas Okorocha, The Man Whose Vision Drives Crazy

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

When Imo State governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, told TELL magazine that “my vision drives me crazy,” many people did not take his words literally.

In November 2016, he tweaked the statement a little, this time saying his love for Imo State keeps him from sleeping. “I find it difficult to sleep now because I want to change the entire face of Imo,” he said.

*President Zuma and Gov Okorocha 

Noble sentiments expected of a leader who means well for his people. But more than six years on the saddle, many Imolites are beginning to wonder whether their governor was speaking metaphorically or literally because his vision for the state (whatever it is) is not only warped, twisted and crazy, but can only be conjured by a mind that is not attuned to reality. It is tunnel vision.

The latest manifestation of such crazy vision is Okorocha’s deification of South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma in Owerri, Imo State capital, last weekend, when he unveiled a gigantic statue in his honour.

Zuma, who flew into the country on Friday, October 13, on what was a “private visit,” was on the same day conferred with a traditional chieftaincy title – Ochiagha Imo (Great Warrior) – by Eze Samuel Ohiri, chairman of the state council of traditional rulers. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo issued the title certificate.

No To 'Operation Crocodile Smile' In The Niger Delta

By Dan Amor

To all intents and purposes, the reported mobilisation of soldiers to Cross River State and other states in the South South geopolitical zone in a military jamboree code named "Operation Crocodile Smile", is needless and avoidable. Unfortunately, Niger Delta youths who call themselves militants have once again played their much-abused region which, ironically, produces the wealth of the nation, into the willing hands of the establishment under the watch of a central government with an unstated or hidden agenda to totally exterminate the goose that lays the golden egg from the face of the earth.

 Even while the region was yet relatively peaceful, when the reawakened restiveness had not reached fever-pitch, President Muhammadu Buhari, even in his inaugural speech alluded to how he would combat and defeat Boko Haram and Niger Delta militants. One can then safely assume that the current war is directly or indirectly orchestrated by the powers that be just to create room for them to execute their plan against the region.

I Left Prison Broke In 1998 – Obasanjo

*Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has disclosed that he left prison broke in 1998, after he was released by former Head of State, General Abdusalami Abubakar following the death of General Sani Abacha, then head of state on June 8, 1998. Obasanjo, who claimed he had no money by the time he regained his freedom after serving in Kirikiri, Jos and Yola prisons for about four years however revealed that the Ford Foundation and the founder of the Cable News Network (CNN), Mr. Ted Turner, surprisingly gave him a lifeline through the sum of $150,000 that was donated to him and which enabled him to settle the tuition fees of his children, whose studies were almost truncated by his incarceration.

The former president, who shared agonising memories of his prison experience at a recent programme organised by Christ The Redeemer’s Friends International (CRFI) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God at the Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, however revealed how he became born again in prison and won souls for Christ. Obasanjo was sentenced to life jail in 1995 by the Abacha junta after he was tried by a military court on trumped-up charges of felony and conspiracy to overthrow the Abacha government, an allegation the former president denied with evidence.

But exactly one week after Abacha passed away on June 8, 1998 under unclear circumstances, Obasanjo was released from the Yola Prison by the administration of Abubakar.

Giving the testimony on how God rescued him from Abacha’s plot to inject him with viral poison at the fellowship recently, Obasanjo said he was broke immediately after he regained his freedom from the Yola Prison, revealing that he had no cash at that time to settle the tuition fees of his children, who were studying in the US.

Before he left the Yola Prison, Obasanjo said he resolved “to live a new life – quiet, peaceful and possibly private. But it was surprising when I got to the airport; a presidential aircraft was already waiting for me. I did not believe it. When I arrived Lagos, two cars with pilots were waiting to convey me to my residence. I held my peace.”
Shortly after he returned home, Obasanjo said he decided “to travel to the US for two reasons. First, I needed to see my children. When I was in prison, they could not pay their tuition. One of them was not allowed to continue because he could not pay his tuition.”

For Onukaba (Adinoyi-Ojo)

By Taiwo Obe

The book, Atiku – The Story of Atiku Abubakar, has the author’s name as Ojo Adinoyi. Unless, of course, you were familiar with the author or, and, knew that he was a special aide to the former Nigerian vice-president, you would have thought that it is not the same person as Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo. But then, when he joined The Guardian as a reporter in June 1983 immediately after his National Youth Service Corps primary assignment at Radio Nigeria, Ikoyi, his name was simply Shaibu Ojo. Till date, one of our colleagues at The Guardian still calls him, perhaps jokingly, Shaibu. He had written an article celebrating Nigeria’s rich culture including taking pride in our traditional lines, signing it with “Shaibu Adinoyi-Ojo.” A reader responded wondering why he was bearing an Arabic name, Shuaib (that’s the correct spelling and it means “stream”), advising him to live by example. Trust Shaibu, a principled person, he quickly dropped that name. His father’s name was Shaibu Onukaba. His own middle name was Adinoyi.

*Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo

So, he became Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo. He likes now to be identified as Adinoyi Onukaba Ojo. As that is mouthful, we shall agree here to call him simply Onukaba, which is what I call him. He calls me Taye, which most people who knew me from childhood still call me. Taye, of course, is the abridgement of To aye wo – (I came to) “taste” the world for my twin, Kehinde, who the Yoruba lore says, sent me – which, for convenience, has also been clipped to Taiwo. By the way, Onukaba means hard work and Adinoyi is “father of the multitude.”

Seest thou a man who is diligent in his work, that’s Onukaba. Anyone who is familiar with this wonderful guy – and this is not patronising him – knows that he gives his all to any project he commits to, and, yes, he’s truly someone who bears the burden of many, particularly his kin, some of whom won’t think twice before abusing the privilege.

Onukaba and I bonded almost immediately when we met. He had studied theatre arts at the University of Ibadan and had been taught playwriting by Prof. Femi Osofisan, who was the one who influenced his admission to The Guardian. He was a quintessential reporter. He shunned unethical practices like a plague.

A little digression, please: the other day a visitor in my office overheard a telephone conversation where I was vouching for Onukaba’s incorruptibility. The visitor wondered if he was a Nigerian. Yes, he is and a proud one at that. 

Indeed, Right Time For Igbo Presidency

By Bolaji Tunji

One Tuesday, former President Olusegun Obasanjo made a case for the South east to also be given a chance to produce the next president of Nigeria. In canvassing this view which he said was personal to him, he noted that most of the other zones in the country- the North, South West and even the minority south South had all produced the nation’s president at one point or the other and it would only be fair if the south east was also allowed to produce Nigeria’s president in the not too distant future.

Indeed, the iconic former president seems to have spoken the mind of most of us who still believe in fairness, justice and equity as way of stemming the agitation from that part of the country.

Within a few days of the ex-president’s statement, there have been reactions from some Nigerians,though mostly of the South east extraction. While some are in support of the former president’s statement, a few remain skeptical believing that Obasanjo’s statement came because he saw that the agitation of South east ethnic nationalities such as Movement for the Actualization of  the Sovereign State of Biafra, (MASSOB) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have grown more strident. Notwithstanding the messenger, the question is whether there is any substance in the message and whether it is or should be a reality worth pursuing?

For someone who has always believed in fairness, equity, Obasanjo’s message resonates with me. If Nigerians have not been thinking in this direction, it is time to start looking that way.

It is not in doubt that the South east has contributed immensely, like any other zone to the development of this country. One would even believe an average South easterner to be more nationalistic than any other, among the different zones in the country. And why would I say this? It is only an Igboman who feels comfortable in any and every part of Nigeria. There is hardly a state or town in Nigeria today where you would not find an Igboman. He  either has a business running or is found offering different services to the host community. He builds his house in that community and feels comfortable there. He sees himself as part of the community. There is a saying in the Southwest, especially among the Oyo-speaking Yoruba that if you got to a town and you could not locate an Ogbomoso person, it would be better for you to run from the place. The implication being that the inhabitants are inhospitable. Ogbomoso people in those days are traders who ply their trade in far-flung places, far from their home.

I think the same applies to the Igbo race. If you ventured into any town or village and you could not locate an Igboman, you would do yourself a world of good by running away from the place. The Igbo is an irrepressible race. Prior to the civil war period, they were everywhere in the country. They were the railway engineers and great merchants while majority were also seen as intellectual giants. With the civil war, majority went back home. But less than five decades after the war, they are every where in Nigeria, trading and contributing to the economy of the host community. If that is not a good example in nationalism, I wonder what is. Their attitude is the trait of a race that still believes in the oneness of the country, despite what some people would say to the contrary.

Bola Ige: Fifteen Years After

By Dan Amor

A calculated insult and the guilt preceded his death, stealing from the actual murder all its potential impact and drama. There never was a crime more dramatically rehearsed, and the tale only provides it could not have been otherwise. Yet there are no clues to be uncovered, no enigmas to be revealed; for this was a murder almost predicted like its predecessors. As a principled and astute politician, even though he agreed to serve in former President Olusegun Obasanjo's cabinet, Chief Bola Ige did not preach to Nigerians.

*Bola Ige 

But he provoked questions and left us in no doubt as to where he stood . He shared none of the current tastes for blurred conflicts, ambiguous characters and equivocal opinions. Nor was he disdainful of strong dramatic situations building up for firm climaxes. From the critic's point of view, the plot of Ige's senseless murder, in its high velocity treachery, summarizes modern Nigeria in one word: "shame".

In his epic novel, Shame (1983), Salman Rushdie, the Indian born controversial English writer, paints the picture of a disconcerting political hallucination in Pakistan, which he calls "Peccavistan" - existing fictionally as a slight angle to reality. The major thrust of the novel is that the shame or shamelessness of its characters returns to haunt them. Yet the recurrent theme is that there are things that cannot be said, things that can't be permitted to be true, in a tragic situation. To this end, fiction and politics ultimately become identical or rather analogous. That so banal and damaging an emotion could have been so manifestly created from within the Yoruba nation itself, is a ringing surprise to us keen observers of that macabre drama. But the truth or falsehood of the accusation or counter-accusation is not of the first importance.

The critical issue that must enlist our concern here is Nigeria's sick criminal justice system and the poverty of integrity of its police force. Fifteen years after the well-planned assassination of the Chief Law Officer of the world's largest black nation (Chief Bola Ige was a Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation when he was killed), his killers are still walking the streets of our cities without challenge. In this sense, Nigeria is back in mediaeval times. The Orwellian qualities and nightmarish implications of the investigations make one sick since the whole exercise is as absurd as it is puerile. Only in Nigeria that a patriotic, brilliant and hardworking lawyer who turned in a prime suspect to the police for prosecution, be arrested and arranged by the same police before a court of law just to engage our false sense of judgment. Did the police not declare Fryo wanted in connection with Ige's death? Only in Nigeria would a prime suspect in such a heinous crime be declared winner, released from detention and sworn in as Senator of the Federal Republic in an electoral contest he did not even campaign.

Where Are We Headed, President Buhari?

By Rotimi Fadsan

The above question probably sounds very unfair and it’s probably in order to address what makes it so before going on any further. The first thing is that the question gives the impression we are under the control of a leader, a pilot or a driver of a vehicle who has lost his sense of direction.

 Such an impression, on the one hand, might imply that this leader as the driver, pilot or whatever else we may choose to call him, of our metaphoric vehicle is adrift and is aware of it. On the other hand, the impression created may be that the leader has no sense that he has lost direction. Neither impression nor its implication is flattering as it leads one to ask if the leader is asleep at the wheels or is simply lazy or shirking, which would be grossly irresponsible. 

I do not for a moment believe the conclusion that the impression painted above leads me to about how President Muhammadu Buhari is leading this country. Which is why I consider my opening question probably very unfair. While leadership is never an easy thing, it’s not at all difficult- in fact it’s very easy to be critical of those in leadership positions and to dismiss their effort with a wave of the hand. To do that without any appreciation of what they might be facing is both unfair and irresponsible. 

My belief is that President Buhari is not sleeping on the job but is working hard to bring about the change he promised before his election.  His intentions for Nigeria appear completely genuine and he is doing his best to realise them. What is, however, critical is how he goes about realising his goals. His strategy for moving Nigeria in the direction of political development and economic growth does not appear well thought through. He seems to and is surely attempting to do too many, not just too soon but all at the same time. 

What this results in is that he spreads himself too thinly across the different aspects of our national life demanding his attention with the further consequence that his government appears to lose direction. It is for this reason that Nigerians are increasingly questioning the competence of this government and demand to know its blueprint for development. It is why they are anxious to know where we are headed and if this government is indeed working at all. 

President Buhari as a person and his ministers might well be working far more for the good of the country and in more selfless manner than those they replaced. But the manner they’ve gone about their job might not be helping their cause or be doing justice to their effort. The question is not therefore whether the president or his ministers are working but how and at what they’ve been working. As for the President, one can see him as he goes on his numerous travels and imagine it can’t be for the fun of it.

 At his age and considering the toll such trips must be having on his body, he can’t be doing them for reasons of personal gain. Nor can it be for the purpose of amassing foreign exchange for the ‘extra duty’ of additional air or road mileage covered. This definitely can’t be his purpose. There must be something more fundamental, a greater motive for his air exertions than the merely pecuniary or sensuous. Even the trips appear to be wearing him down. He looks spent these days than he was when he took office. He simply can’t be going around for nothing. It is true that our leaders appear to be footloose once they get into office, creating the impression that they enjoy the trips abroad than staying back home to do the hard work of leadership.  

President Obasanjo was criticised for this. President Jonathan far less so. Only President Umar Yar’Adua escaped this type of criticism and, perhaps, for the obvious reason of ill health. There must therefore be something in the nature of their job that, for good or bad reasons, compel our leaders to embark on frequent trips abroad. But in order that these frequent trips to get support do not amount to nothing; in order for him not to appear to be out of his depth governing this country, President Buhari needs to concentrate his effort in one or two direction. So far he appears to be fighting corruption at the expense of everything else. His efforts in this regard have not come with the right kind of reward. They appear bogged down by court processes even when there is no doubt that most of those caught in the net of investigators have a lot to explain. But victory may not come too soon. 

Nigeria: When 'Clueless' Is Better Than Calamitous

By Bolaji Tunji

The present government of President Muhammadu Buhari would, in a few months, be two years old. Ever since the government was sworn in, save for the euphoria that trailed a new government and the expectation of Nigerians looking for change, if truth has to be told, Nigerians have not really got anything to show for all the change that they were promised. There is hardship in the land occasioned by the poor state of the economy. Nigerians are hungry. Prices of essential commodities are soaring. Food items are no longer affordable. As for social amenities, Nigerians experience more of darkness than light as power has worsened. Former Lagos governor and Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Raji Fashola, has not been able to find solution to the problem.

*Buhari 

Most of the people who aided and supported this government such as former President Olusegun Obasanjo have equally signaled their dissatisfaction with the way things are going. He told the government to concentrate on clearing the mess inherited instead of complaining about the situation. In the early days of the administration, it was the in thing to blame the Goodluck Jonathan administration for the rot in the system. If the present government would continue to have its way, it would still have preferred to continue blaming the previous administration. But this would have shown the new government as lacking in initiative for still blaming its predecessor at nearly two years of taking over. Come to think of it, does this present administration have initiative, creativity? I do not think so. As much as Nigerians admire the person of President Buhari for his honesty, integrity (I equally do),  he has fallen short of the expectation of so many Nigerians. This is not just about criticizing the president for the sake of it, but criticism is coming because the president, in the past 17 months, has shown his unpreparedness for governance. I want him to succeed but wishing is different from the reality. The reality is that nothing is working. Companies are finding it difficult to continue and jobs are being lost.

I have written about the fact that there is no clear cut economic blue print and so many other Nigerians, who are in position to know this, have said the same. It is what former President Obasanjo described as administration by “adhocry”. Looking for quick fix solution without an in depth understanding of the problem. It is what led this same administration to China like other administrations before. Obasanjo visited China twice, late President Umaru Yar’Adua, President Jonathan equally visited before President Buhari’s visit in April.

Prior to that trip, the government had made us to understand that solution to the problems we are facing especially as it concerns the dollars would be found in China and that the focus on that country would reduce the over dependence on the dollar.  I had sounded a warning that the China trip would not solve our problem as it was an ad hoc solution. We were told that many agreements were signed in areas of power, solid minerals, etc. I am yet to see any of these taking off. Why not against such a trip, it should have been taken as part of a larger picture of our economic policy. If we have an economic policy, the question would have been; how does China fits into the overall picture?

Buhari Needs No Recession Experts

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

In their tepid search for solutions to the current economic crisis, our political leaders are fixated on two culprits that gnaw at the nation’s wellbeing.

It is either the past that is chastised for not catering for its future or the militancy in the Niger Delta that has driven oil revenue to its nadir.

*Buhari 

Our current leaders can keep avoiding culpability for the nation’s economic recession. The danger is that any optimism about overcoming the crisis in a short time may soon evaporate as long as our political leaders fail to recognise that it is not only the past that is sullied by the administration of Goodluck Jonathan and his predecessors that should be blamed, but the present that is anchored on the current administration is equally complicit.

We are on the right path to economic redemption only when we appreciate the fact that the affliction that is the source of the recession is simply that our politics reeks of a crude conflation of national and personal interests by political leaders. Actuated by the credo of politics that negates national interest, politicians pursue purely selfish goals and present them to the citizens as targeted at engendering national transformation.

Thus no matter how potentially workable the recommendations from the citizens for the development of their nation, most political leaders do not have that capacity to accommodate them. And this is why all ideas about development, no matter how ill-bred , must come from their cronies because they would not pose any threat to their interests. Or why have all the great proposals for the development of the nation for over five decades not launched it into the league of the developed?

Now that there is a flurry of suggestions from the citizens as regards how to overcome the recession, our leaders may only take the ones that would not threaten their personal interests. President Muhammadu Buhari has been asked to invite experts to help him salvage the economy. Some citizens want him to invite the nation’s best economists to proffer solutions to the economic problems. Some have even canvassed the return of former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The former minister has already said she would not be ready to serve under the Buhari government when she is invited as she wants other people to contribute their own quota to development. Okonjo-Iweala may not even be an acceptable choice having been tainted by her association with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) when she served its government. She is still subjected to excoriation for triggering the crisis in the first place by her feckless economic management.

One More State For The South East

By Dan Amor

 To all intents and purposes, the position of the Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, that at least one more state be created in the South East geo-political zone is most appropriate. In a recent statement, the group renewed its call for a balanced federation for the sake of equity.

Pressing the demand further, the group enthused: “Nobody can say we are asking for too much because we are demanding for the creation of one or two more states in the South East. North East, North Central, South-West and South-South all have six states each. North-West has seven. Why should South East have only five?” In fact, this position is sacrosanct. If the Nigerian state were founded on justice and fairness, the South-East deserves more than five states. The statement credited to the Deputy Senate President and Chairman of the Senate Committee on the review of the Constitution, Ike Ekweremadu that the path to the creation of new states was tedious is unacceptable. The restructuring of this lopsided federation must begin with a new state for the South East geo-political zone.

Indeed, it is glaring that for so long, the ugly phenomenon of injustice has been institutionalized in the country. But for how long must the people continue to endure the unnerving weight of this hydra-headed monster? The quake of apprehension and insecurity enveloping the country is the outcome of several decades of injustice inflicted on certain groups in the country by others. It is now as though the nation is still under colonial bondage whereby almost all the ethnic nationalities are agitating for political autonomy and liberation. The truth is that the North used the military to internally recolonise the country. With what we have been witnessing, it is evident that the communal bond that once held the various component parts together has been rendered taut and things are beginning to fall apart. The obvious is that in today’s Nigeria, there is enormous bad blood amongst the various brother nationals making up the concocted union. Yet, it is most annoying that this embarrassing situation is a deliberate creation by those who think that the entire country is their bona fide property.

Or else, how does one rationalize the process whereby Lagos State which hitherto had nine million population was given only twenty local government areas while Kano State that had a population of six million was given forty-four local governments after Jigawa was carved out of it? Now, with more than twenty million population, Lagos is still officially recognized as having a paltry twenty local councils while Kano has forty-four plus the number of local councils in Jigawa state. It will therefore be sheer pretence and active game of the ostrich to behave as though nothing is wrong with the soul of the nation. Isn’t it imperative that after several years of trying to paper over serious cracks on the nation’s body politic the present administration should recognize the need to heal old national wounds as a prerequisite for the much-needed national reconciliation? Yet, unfortunately, the Buhari administration has even aggravated the situation with his one-sided ethno-religious-induced appointments.

Jonathan’s Bill Of Rights Or Failures?

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It remains a puzzle of governance in Africa why those we entrust with leadership do not creditably acquit themselves like their counterparts in some nations of the world.  Before our politicians get power, we are enthralled by their resonant visions of an equitable society that would be an all-powerful response to the mockery that the black man would irremediably chafe under the affliction of  inept leadership. But once they are in office, they often fail to translate such grand dreams into reality.  After they leave office, they regain the trajectory of articulating how a great society should be run.

*Jonathan 

This is the problem of a nation whose leaders do not really prepare for leadership. They are imposed on the citizens by themselves, others or circumstances. It is only when they are thrown up by circumstances or other people or they bulldoze their way into power that they start to learn about what they should do while in office. Of course, this is in the rare case of when they learn at all. Most times, our leaders do not bother to learn about the real issues for which they are in office.

Rather, once they get to office, they become not only enamoured of it, they are pre-occupied with how to sustain themselves in their position to the detriment of good governance. This is when they think of the next election and how they would return to their offices.  It is when they would globe-trot, marry more wives and take more chieftaincy titles. It is because our leaders only remember the right things they should have done only after leaving office that the country would remain undeveloped or even retrogress.

But the real tragedy is that such leaders do not behave in a manner that shows that they regret frittering away some opportunities to do great things for their country. For instance, ever since former President Olusegun Obasanjo left office, he has been  behaving as though he were the only Nigerian alive who  could proffer solutions to the  seemingly intractable problems of the nation. It is in the same mould that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has caught the limelight by canvassing the restructuring of the country as the solution to its myriad of problems. If they had used the opportunities they had to do what they are talking about now, they would not need to push them into public consciousness now.

Ever since he left office, former President Goodluck Jonathan has been silent. Even when it seemed he would react to the persistent  insinuations of his complicity in the corruption charges hanging over many of his aides, he has avoided being embroiled in them. But he broke his silence on Monday when he spoke in London. Indeed, Jonathan’s speech brims with stellar ideas about how to run a society that is underpinned by a clearly defined bill of rights. Jonathan wants such a bill of rights to be similar to the British Magna Carta established some 800 years ago, and  the one introduced by America’s Founding Fathers.

Rethinking The National Assembly

Lewis Obi

It took the distribution of exquisite luxury cars that cost N57 million apiece to members of the Senate to shock Nigerians from their slumber and resignation. To a great many Ni­gerians, the National Assembly has become like the malady without cure, which must be endured. Perhaps the nearly N3 billion spent on vehicles the senators did not need, at a time the nation could not afford it, might be the overreach that finally serves as the last straw.

It might not. But the “Occupy National As­sembly” protests which began earlier in the week was a signal that at last Nigerians are beginning to lose their cool and are starting to voice it out.

The demands of the protesters were modest: immediate resignation of the Senate President, Dr. Olusola Saraki; the return of the expensive vehicles by the senators; and the revision of the 2016 budget. In a real democracy, the stu­dents and others who staged the “Occupy Na­tional Assembly” would never have needed to protest. A senate president facing something akin to felony and perjury charges would not need a reminder to step aside. It’s expected to be automatic. The vehicle purchase by the senate was a clear case of abuse of power, a flagrant misuse of the constitutional power of the purse, and the senate cannot point to any country in the world where such a purchase would be contemplated much less executed.

Nigeria has never been a nation of pro­testers, a fact which tyrants have exploited to perpetrate all kinds of enormities in the military dictatorship era. Now the National Assembly has latched on the same theory to stand democracy on its head and to contin­ue to assume that Nigerians wouldn’t know the difference.

Senate Majority Leader Ali Ndume took on the protesters and was quoted in a newspaper as saying that no form of pro­test would force anyone to resign from the National Assembly because the protest­ers were not the people who elected them in the first place. The 107 vehicles would not be returned because they were meant for the senators to carry out their various committee assignments and the vehicles remain the property of the National As­sembly. On television Senator Ndume said that the National Assembly was the differ­ence between autocracy or dictatorship and democracy. In other words, take away the National Assembly and all you have is dic­tatorship.

Senator Ndume is never given to mod­esty and when he speaks Nigerians see a tyrant in democratic garb. The reason no form of protest would force anyone to re­sign from the National Assembly is because the National Assembly is not a democratic institution in the first place. With very few exceptions, the seats were bought and paid for in millions, sometimes, hundreds of mil­lions of Naira of dubiously acquired wealth which partly accounts for the desperation of members to claw at everything and use all kinds of machinations in their quest for wealth in order to retain their positions.

Buhari: President Without Economic Think Tank

     By Omoh Gabriel

In this column in August last year, I had cause to ask how far President Buhari can go in managing a tough economy. There has been growing concerns about this government’s handling of the economy. At the moment, there seems to be no clear cut economic blueprint for which government policies are framed. It appears to me that every minister is working by intuition without any economic guiding principle.

*President Buhari 

The President is yet to appoint his Chief Economic adviser, have an economic management team or a think tank that meets regularly to discuss what is on ground, what measures needed to be put in place to address them quickly. It is like the focus is all about looking for thieves, catching them, and recovering what they have stolen. This is good and fair enough. After the President has finished the recovery of the looted funds, what next and how will the looted funds be channeled into the economy to benefit the ordinary Nigerian?

What the ordinary Nigerian is interested in is food on his table, good school for his children, good medical care and shelter and security of life and property.

In any economy, the goal of macro economic policy is to achieve full employment of resources, balance growth, stable prices of goods and services; and a stable currency through a healthy balance of payment.

As it is today, all four macro economic indices are pointing south. This government seems not to understand or know what to do to address the situation. The government does not need to go too far to know what to do. Nigeria has several development research documents that speak of ways to better manage the economy. But the problem has always been that leaders are often not focused enough to implement them faithfully.

In most countries today, the economics of the middle class has taken the center stage. This is because if the middle class is doing well, the purchasing power in the hand of this class will make the economy to grow. When in 1986, General Babangida introduced the famous Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), it was with good intention. But half way down the line of implementation, the programme was derailed by Nigerians who kept crying of the hardship the programme was putting the nation through.

President Babagida before coming up with SAP had a retinue of very bright minds as his advisers. Babagida had a team then that was called the Presidential Economic Advisory Council. This body was busy preparing documents and seeking informed opinion from operators in the private sector. He went to the point of instituting what was then known as Corporate Nigeria — a yearly gathering of captains of industry to tap their knowledge of the economy before any policy initiative.

Buhari: How Prepared Is This Absentee President?

By Immanuel Igwu

Within six months of inauguration, the man Nigerians elected in a historic voter revolution has created an alarming pattern of absenteeism. President Muhammadu Buhari, who is hyped as an orator of ‘’body language’’, has been voting with his feet since May 29, 2015.

*Yet another goodbye to Nigeria

An audit of his overseas travel shows that, so far, he has accumulated more than forty days and forty nights of elopement!

Though Buhari begged for and received from Nigerians a clear mandate to help break the free fall of a nation that is disappearing into an economic abyss, a Nigeria that offers the world one of the most frequent and highest death tolls due to terrorist attacks, he shows that he can hardly afford the discipline of sitting down long enough to master the desperate emergencies of the nation.

With the recurring image of a lanky, bespectacled man standing at the door of the presidential aircraft, waving and waving an umpteenth good bye, Buhari has literally compelled the discerning to cotton up to the fact that he would rather go elsewhere than fulfill the sedentary lion-share of his job!

Time is the easiest to calculate aspect of Buhari’s wanderlust: By checking his itinerary and adding small numbers, one can determine that our brand new leader has notched a month plus stay abroad. The monetary cost is different: It is hidden. Nigerian taxpayers do not know the irreducible minimum amount of their money that grows wings whenever he leaves the Nigerian airspace in his presidential glory.

The President of Northern Nigeria?

By Abiodun Ladepo

Hurray! It is September and Nigerians from the South can now expect to be called upon to serve their country as members of President Buhari’s cabinet. No, they are not going to be the National Security Adviser. They are not going to be Accountant-General of the Federation. They are not going to head DSS, EFCC or INEC. They are not going to head the Nigerian Ports Authority or the Nigerian Maritime Administration, Safety and Security Agency (NIMASA). They are not going to head Customs or Immigrations.

Listen; there is quite a long list of serious positions they are not going to have because those positions have gone to the North. In the infinite wisdom of President Muhammadu Buhari, after having searched the length and breadth of Nigeria looking for competent people who are also not tainted by the stain of corruption, these positions will only go to the North where there is an abundance of incorruptible and competent Nigerians.

Is APC Ready for Leadership?

By Olusegun Adeniyi

To be sure, we are all aware that there was no way President Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) would have been able to wrestle power from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) without poaching from members of the then ruling party. But now that the APC is in government at the centre, it is not too much to expect that the party would begin to forge its own distinct identity. From the way things stand, however, no such thing is going on. If anything, the PDP is gradually but steadily imposing itself on the polity, essentially because nature abhors a vacuum. There is nowhere that has become more apparent than in the National Assembly.

In most democracies across the world (whether parliamentary or presidential) once a political party becomes the majority in the legislature (even if by just a single vote), its members would assume the chairmanship of standing committees. The essence of that is not only to compensate for victory but indeed to also push the agenda of the new ruling party. But in Nigeria, legislative committees are seen as booties to be shared by the presiding officers with the “more juicy” ones reserved for friends and allies regardless of their competences or lack thereof. It is within that context that one can understand the recent composition of the standing committees in both the House of Representatives and Senate.

*Buhari and Saraki

It must be pointed out that the “political hybrid” in the National Assembly did not start with this administration since minority parties have always been given some committees to chair. But it has never been this pronounced though I will blame it on the way the new ruling party mishandled both the election of presiding officers and its eventual fall-outs. In the present circumstance, since APC members are not united by any shared ideals, it is easy to see why, in the House of Representatives, virtually all the committees that are important for reforms of certain areas of our national life have been handed to the opposition PDP members by the Speaker, Hon Yakubu Dogara, who is evidently more interested in shoring up his support base, in the absence of any coherent policy direction by his party.

Illiberality In An Age Of Conspiracy

By Dan Amor

For those who have a profound appreciation of power and its most penetrating insight as well, the fact of the matter, as the Italians once succinctly put it, is that power cannot be wrested no matter the paradigm one uses without certain attributes by the group or individual that jockeys after it. Popularized as the Three Cs in political parlance, any group that earnestly seeks power must be cohesive. It must be coherent. And it must be conspiratorial. 

*President Jonathan 

In an attempt to wrest power from President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, even before the Senate's Doctrine of Necessity following the untimely death of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, some hawks have tried to employ certain machinations including coercion and brigandage to humiliate him from the pinnacle of power.

Few Nigerians have been so persistently, so perversely and so pertinaciously maligned in the folklore of our political evolution. Even before Yar'Adua was officially pronounced dead, there was  cataclysm in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) arising from the sharp division between defenders of entrenched interests who insisted that the North must retain power and those who insisted that the sanctity of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria must supervene.  That is where Jonathan's problem started. With the intervention of the Senate, he assumed the Presidency in acting capacity and later as substantive President. In 2011, northern politicians insisted that Jonathan should not run, which is grossly unconstitutional. Again, the Constitution gained upper hand, and Jonathan, in what was considered a free-and-fair election by local and international observers, won a pan-Nigerian mandate as the country's fourth democratically elected President.

Why Should I Read Obasanjo’s Book?

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

I must congratulate myself on successfully avoiding virtually all of Gen Olusegun Obasanjo’s usually ego-massaging and attention-craving books. I have, for instance, NOT read Obasanjo’s My Command, Not My Will, Nzeogwu, and his other little-known titles.

*Olusegun Obasanjo

(pix: magazine.tcu)

But when his first wife, Mrs. Oluremi Obasanjo, published her book, Bitter-Sweet: My Life With Obasanjo, I went through a lot of stress to purchase a copy. I also wasted no time to read and review it.  Obasanjo had been talking about other people and cutting them down with self-righteous zeal, so I wanted to hear what somebody who had intimately shared a greater part of his life had to say about him.  Indeed, this is one book Obasanjo would not like to be in circulation. But   most people who have read the book would readily recommend it as a background study to anyone interested in reading Obasanjo’s books where he usually presents himself as one of the world’s most righteous human beings and competent leaders. Like one reviewer said and I agree, in societies where the law is alive and active and treats everyone equally, “the allegations against Obasanjo [in that book], if proven in a court of law, would have earned him a long stay in jail.”    

Now, Obasanjo has published another book which he called My Watch and I seriously doubt that I would want to read it. There are several wonderful books lying in my study and begging for my attention, so I would consider it a complete waste of my time to read Obasanjo’s new book, which judging from the snippets published in the media is nothing more than unappetizing potpourri of cassava-market gossip, careless hawking of vicious, libelous allegations, and further futile attempt at self-canonization. His aim, it appears, is to settle some scores with his real or imagined adversaries, undermine President Jonathan’s chances in the February 2015 elections and raise an ear-deafening controversy that would turn the book into an instant best-seller.