Believe APC Govt, You’ll Believe Anything!

By Reno Omokri

There is only one thing worse than the show of shame that took place at the National Assembly on Tuesday, August 7, 2018, when the Buhari administration laid siege on the National Assembly. The one thing worse than that despicable is the attempt by the executive to spin the whole thing as a conspiracy between Senate President, Bukola Saraki and the bow sacked DSS Boss, Lawal Daura. 

Oshiomhole and Buhari 

If you believe that tale, then I can assure you that you will believe anything. So preposterous is the allegation that I would have wondered why anyone will tell such a monumental lie. And then it hit me. The tactic now being employed by the Buhari administration to spin the National Assembly siege as a conspiracy between Senate President Bukola Saraki and the now disgraced DSS Director General, Lawal Daura is known as the Big Lie. 

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.

Nigeria: Change In Chains

By Joe Iniodu

The change mantra that the All Progressive Congress (APC) used so profusely to blackmail Nigerians into its deceitful contraption seems to be manacled in chains. Ten months on, there is no evidence of governance except reports of arrest coarsely alluding them to corruption that are neither substantiated nor culprits convicted. Real governance is in flight and hardship is upon the land. The question on the lips of many is: where is the change that was used to lure the people? The change has remained a ruse.

(pix:voa)

Ten months of the government of APC, the Boko Haram insurgency that was to be considered an anathema upon its ascension into power is still festering and perhaps more emboldened; the jejune pledge by PMB to stabilize oil price in favour of the country which was a strong pointer to his lack of grasp of the current dynamics in the oil industry remains unfulfilled; equally a woeful failure is the non realization of his campaign promise to force dollar and naira into convenient parity but which today finds the two currencies at yawning gaps; its failure to arrest the prices of goods and services which are currently at astronomical levels; its tardy treatment of students abroad and Nigerians on medical tourism who are today said to be in a lurch. These and a myriad of other acts of ineptitude have combined to make life brutish in this once great Nation that was wealthy in hope. I make bold to say that until the end of former President Jonathan’s administration, the Nation did not slide to such precipice of despair.

Yes, admitted, impunity reigned supreme. Corruption sadly was rife with leadership unfortunately looking the other way. But the wheel of governance continued to grind even when some aspects were mired in corruption. Leadership, despite its moral deficiency continued to give hope, it continued to demonstrate capacity and vision. It was the combination of these attributes that made the people to reckon that if the monster of corruption could be termed, the Nation can rise again to its old glory. And in the last days before its exit, PDP showed itself as a visionary party that could pull itself from the brink. It identified grey areas where corruptions were starkly perpetrated and set about introducing mechanisms of checks. Perhaps the approach was muffled and not very radical. With little or no publicity of its renewed efforts in tackling the monster, some Nigerians considered the party and its leadership at the centre as complicit in the denudation of the Nation. The APC latched on this misconception using its brazen tool of propaganda and blackmail. The rest is history.

1999-2015: Akpabio As Best Governor

By Dan Amor

One major sign of the growing sophistication of Athenian society in the Golden Age was the rise of history as a critical record of the nation's past. As myth gave way to more accurate chronicling and prose replaced verse as the medium for preserving fact, the fifth century Greeks came closer to the scientific spirit of free inquiry in modern times. In fact, it was then that Plato declared that a life not examined was a life not worth living!

Memories are made of these. Yet, nothing seems more characteristic of the present age than the homogeneity of  its world view. We may frown at its developmental smugness but we must admire its optimism, its cosmopolitanism, its intellectual refinements, its spirit of true enlightenment and the critical engagement with which it examines the world and its leaders. For, it is always instructive for the serious student of history to start by trying to determine what an age thought of itself.

Such an investigation is made the easier by studying the lives and times of the important men and women that shaped the age with their actions. In documenting the life and times of a towering personality, exciting experiences are selected, which present emotional and spiritual values, to interpret the tale as it is rehearsed in imagination or told to an admiring listener or hearer. As a faithful servant, a dedicated realist and reformer, who bridged all gulfs, leveled all mountains and put a lamp in every tunnel, as exemplified by his selfless stewardship to the people of Akwa Ibom State since the past eight years, Obong (Senator) Godswill Akpabio CON, the immediate past governor of Akwa Ibom State, has undoubtedly come to be seen as a modern day phenomenon whose corpus requires a large canvas.

Enugu Governor Chime Returns After 140 Days

 

 Sullivan Chime 

At last, the Governor of Enugu State, Mr. Sullivan Chime, is back in the country after being away for 140 days reportedly treating an undisclosed ailment. Mr. Chime arrived the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, this morning aboard a British Airways flight.  Some reports say he is still in Abuja at the Enugu State Government Lodge and is expected to come into Enugu on Friday where his protracted absence has caused considerable disquiet.

Chime had left the country in September to spend what the Enugu State Government said was his accumulated leave.  Initial reports said he was in India and critically ill. It was even remoured that he had passed away, a report that was strongly refuted by the Enugu State Government.  Later, reports confirmed he was in a London hospital.