The Coup In Niger

 By Nick Dazang

The Czar of military coup d’etats in Nigeria once offered us a useful glimpse into the prime motivation and raison d’etre for the overthrow of governments by force. Former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, a putschist par excellence, and a veteran of all successful coups, except that in which the late General Sani Abacha ousted the illicit Interim National Government, ING, of Chief Ernest Shonekan, once stated that all coups were inspired by the subsisting frustration in a given society.

In the aftermath of the 1983 coup, which ushered in the draconian administration of Major General Muhammadu Buhari, as he then was, a well respected Nigerian Editor, fed up by the chicanery and ineptitude of the President Shehu Shagari administration, proclaimed that God was a Nigerian. In retrospect, this well regarded Editor must  rue his effusive endorsement of military rule. The flip side to this unrestrained display of emotion must be the sedate but poignant observation by Mr. Peter Enahoro, one Africa’s best Journalists.

Once Upon A Fight Between Obasanjo And Babangida

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

The two generals are seen as the best of friends across the political spectrum of the Nigerian nation. In many informed circles, General Matthew Okikiola Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo and General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida are seen as belonging to the rarefied class known as “Owners of Nigeria”.

*Obasanjo and Babangida

Only the uninformed does not know that when there was the transition to civil rule back in 1999 it was Babangida who arranged that Obasanjo should be brought out of General Sani Abacha’s prison to be made the president of Nigeria.

This act made Obasanjo to create the record of a two-time leader of Nigeria after having been a military Head of State in his first missionary journey.

Stop! Nigerians Lives Matters

By Ene Gift Linus

Democracy on paper is not enough. Free, fair, and violence-free elections are crucial for the protection and deepening of representative democracy in any country. It is shameful and inhuman when political candidates use their own citizens as pawn to pave the way for their political ambitions. Unfortunately, electoral violence has been a continuous problem in Nigerian politics since she became a federation in 1963. 

Usually, the violence and killings occur either before the election (electoral campaign) or after the election.The First Republic (1963-1966) collapsed due to the  widespread violence unleashed by politicians in the disputed 19665 general election that led to the first military coup of January 15, 196. During the Second Republic (1979), the country returned to civil rule, but not long before some politicians again, resorted to electoral violence especially during the August 1983 general election where political observers said that, Akin Omoboriowo versus Governor Adekunle Ajasin saga in the old Ondo State allegedly involved in electoral fraud in the state led to three days of severe killings and arson, resulting in military takeover on December 31, 1983.

MKO Abiola Deserves Apology, Not Humour

By Afam Nkemdiche

When I first heard about President Muhammadu Buhari’s surprise posthumous honour to Chief M. K. O. Abiola, the widely acknowledged winner of the 1993 presidential election, my instinctive thought was, “My God! How could he nerve his conscience to do that – he was a principal confidant of the maximum ruler who denied MKO his well deserved mandate, until the mysterious death-in-detention???”

*Abiola 

It cannot be gainsaid, even in fiction, that Buhari was the closest public figure to the Kano-born general in Nigeria’s darkest years. Soon after Abacha sacked Ibrahim Babangida’s contraption (Shonekan’s Interim Government), he decreed that all monies that accrued from petroleum be pooled into a Fund, the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF. The humongous size of the envisaged pool qualified the PTF to be immediately referred to as a “parallel government”; even the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, had to look to it for funding. Buhari was the first and only executive chairman of the PTF. This was a measure of the unique camaraderie that the duo enjoyed when Nigeria teetered on the brink of disintegration from November 1993 until June 1998 when Abacha suddenly succumbed to death ahead of his detainee. 

Nigeria: Three Old Men In The Ring

By Dare Babarinsa

The people of Lafia trooped out last Tuesday to welcome the nation’s number one citizen to Nasarawa State. The enthusiastic welcome was an indication that Buhari still packs a lot of muscle and those who are thinking of taking him on should consider what they are up against. However, it is clear too that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is restive and rebellion is rearing its head from unexpected quarters. This is more so when its reign, despite the resounding victory Buhari recorded in 2015, now seems precarious if not endangered.

*Babangida, Obasanjo and Buhari 

 Buhari is the first politician to lead the progressive camp to victory at the Federal level. All attempts in the past, in 1959, 1964, 1979, 1983 and since the return of democratic rule in 1999 have failed before the tumultuous ride to power by Citizen Buhari. Now he is facing allegations of reckless partisanship, unblinking nepotism and of heart-breaking incompetence. It does not help matters that some terrorist elements have succeeded in hijacking the sporadic burst of violence by suspected Fulani herdsmen and have killed more Nigerians under the watch of Buhari than even the notorious Boko Haram insurgents.

Subsidy Removal, Fuel Scarcity And Buhari's Grand Failure

By Dan Amor

Over the years, Nigeria's four decrepit refineries which were built to refine crude oil into petroleum products for local consumption and possibly for exports were left to rot just to make room for the importation of petroleum products by the governing elite and their contractors. This makes it pretty difficult for the importers or oil marketers to bring the products to the reach of the final consumers without incurring additional costs. The effect of this excess tax on the consumers in the name of landing and other costs of carriage from the ports to depots across the country is what government tries to cushion so that the products would be affordable for the common man. This extra payment government makes to the oil marketers in order to maintain an affordable price regime for the products is what is generally referred to as oil subsidy.

*Buhari 

Subsidy is therefore a government policy that would act as a palliative due to fluctuations in the international market. But what makes this policy so controversial in Nigeria is that everything about the oil & gas sector is shrouded in secrecy. Ever since the military administration of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida introduced the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1988, whose major intention was to vend juicy national assets to willing buyers, those companies not sold to government officials or their cronies, were allowed to rot in other to attract the sympathy of Nigerians for their privatization. The refineries, two in Port Harcourt, one in Onne near Warri and one in Kaduna, are part of those assets. Since the Babangida era, Nigerians have been living with this menace. It triggered a lot of civil unrests during which several Nigerians including university students were killed.