East-West Road And Shame Of A Nation

 By Jerome Utomi

The world is aware that the Niger Delta area or the South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria is prone to many negative influences as a result of successive Federal Governments’ neglect of the region. Some of these challenges are well known and glaring, yet no attention given to addressing them, even though they have a substantial impact on people, corporations and social levels.

A typical example of such monumental neglect is the shoddy state of the East-West Road, a strategic road connecting the country’s busiest and foremost commercial cities in the region. That is why it is baffling that successive administrations in Nigeria had allowed the road to degenerate to such a state of disrepair.

Can We Have A New Nigeria, Please?

 By Ayo Oyoze Baje

Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, the beacon-bearer of Nigeria, nay Africa’s peaceful coexistence and the flag-flying patriot certainly deserves sincere apologies, eight years after he graciously and peacefully left the corridors of political power, at Aso Rock, Abuja.

And the apologies should in fact, come from the All Progressives Congress (APC) political party with its ‘Change’ mantra, which the millions of overtly naïve and gullible supporters swallowed line, hook and sinker. That played itself out of course, during its well-oiled, puerile propaganda-fuelled presidential campaigns back in the 2014/2015 season.

The Iconic Exit Of Chinua Achebe

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Chinua Achebe died at exactly 11:51pm (US time), that is 4.51am (Nigerian time), on Thursday, March 21 at the Harvard University Teaching Hospital, Massachusetts, USA, aged 82. It was one death that shook the entire world as tributes came pouring in from all the continents of the world, from presidents down to paupers. 

      *Pix by Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye (2013)

For some of his admirers, the world stood still, yet for orders events moved at a frenetic pace, culminating to the Thursday, May 23 interment of the icon in his native Ogidi, Anambra State. The one-storey home of Chinua Achebe looks quite modest from the outside but it has a lift inside. The building for me captures the essence of the great progenitor of African literature: the quality of what is within is greater than any showiness outside.

 The mausoleum constructed to the side of the frontage of the building bears the heavy burden of the memory of Mother Africa in the buried remains of Professor Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, the inimitable author of Things Fall Apart. 

Achebe was interred at 4.30pm in a marble tomb in his Ikenga village ancestral home of Ogidi town in Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State. He was given an elaborate Christian funeral service at St. Philips Anglican Church, Ogidi, as opposed to the African mores he championed in his novels.

Encounter With Chuks Iloegbunam

By Dan Amor

In 2013, when yours sincerely was about leaving the Editorial Board of Daily Independent Newspapers, having served on the board for more than ten (10) years, Chief Nnanna Ochereome, Chairman of the Editorial Board of Vanguard Newspapers, recommended me to his friend and colleague, Chief Chuks Iloegbunam, then Media Adviser to Prof. Sylvester Monye. The latter was then Special Adviser to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan on Performance Monitoring & Evaluation at the Presidency in Abuja. The purpose of the recommendation was for yours sincerely to assist them in the writing and documentation of some procedures at that level of government as a consultant.

*Iloegbunam 

Before then, I had been reading and following Chuks Iloegbunam without having to meet with him face-to-face. He was already an established writer and one of the inimitable and quintessential pen rollers in Nigeria and Africa. Chuks Iloegbunam, for me, is simply a man who has been working hard to find words and images that capture the experience of Nigeria, from her first decade of independence or thereabouts to her first experience in violence as national pastime. 

Between Buhari and Jonathan

By Ebere Wabara

I have a strong conviction that President Muhammadu Buhari is overwhelmed by the challenges he met on assumption of office and the novelty of fresh missteps by his administration. The country is just faltering and floundering like a ship without a compass. Its analogical equivalence is driving a vehicle with the driver’s eyes blindfolded. One thing is certain, if the veil is not swiftly removed, there is a very high certitude that the vehicle will crash and its occupants involved in ghastliness and fatalism!

*Jonathan and Buhari 

Issuing from the above and other deteriorations which I will explicate shortly, it would be justifiably correct to declare that President Buhari is irrefutably more clueless than his predecessor, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ)!

This government is spending precious time battling people who are not our immediate problems at all. If it is not Dasuki, the leadership of the National Assembly comes to the fore in a serial spectacle that offers comical relief. The vogue of course is Femi Fani-Kayode, the former Aviation Minister and media campaign arrowhead of GEJ in the last presidential election, and lately Dr. Reuben Abati, spokesman for ex-President GEJ. In all of their cases and other tangential ones, the stream had been obviously witch-hunt. All the justificatory rationalizations are like a mirage that you cannot behold in what is plainly a circus show that may serially run for the next two years.

Concerned Nigerians have also consistently expressed worry why the anti-corruption crusade should primarily, preferably exclusively, be targeted at only members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Again, the usual perfunctory elucidation by government functionaries is that it will soon get to the turn of the ruling party, the all Progressives Congress (APC). The whole thing looks like a charade.

Amid all these, the cost of living is not just spiraling but has gone out of description even by lexicographers and etymologists. It has never been so bad for my fellow countrymen. Not even in the choking days of the Structural Adjustment Programme and other belt-tightening measures of the past. What is going on now is like official strangulation of citizens! And because we are so timid, docile and indifferent to our environment and all matters that get thrown up in this part of the world, our so-called leaders (better still, rulers) capitalize on this citizenship weakness and drive roughshod with us. All of us keep hands akimbo and hope that there would be divine intervention soonest—even without helping ourselves!

The festering hardship and obnoxious cost of living are such that prices of basic items change virtually by the hour these days. You buy an essential product in the morning at a price that would have changed by noon and it goes on like that interminably. There are no official explanations, management of the bursting prices, cushioning programmes or anticipatory interventionist initiatives. Everyone is just carrying on as if we were in the time of King Pharoah a la to your tents oh Nigerians.

Buhari's Tale Of Empty Treasury And $30 Billion Loan

By Onyiorah Paschal Chidulemije

Ever since he was sworn in as a democratically elect­ed President of Nigeria on May 29, 2015, one frivolous trend that has conspicuously character­ized President Muhammadu Bu­hari’s administration is the inces­sant and boring tale of how he inherited empty treasury from the past government of Presi­dent Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. Like a nagging spouse, the Pres­ident would always explore and exploit every small or big oppor­tunity, either within or outside the country, to blabber on about how he came in to behold an empty treasury.

*Jonathan and Buhari 

Just recently, while addressing members of the National Insti­tute for Policy and Strategic Stud­ies who visited him in the State House, the President was report­edly quoted as saying that he al­most ran away from office after taking over from President Good­luck Ebele Jonathan.

Please hear him: “Actually, I felt like absconding…I asked if there was any savings and I was told there was no savings”.

Strangely enough, like a rea­sonable person will ask, is this why a man who had repeatedly contested for the Presidency of Nigeria and, thus, implicitly          pre­pared himself – psychological­ly and otherwise - to change the course of the country, should have taken to his heels? Oh my God! 

Now, let us return to the is­sue of President Buhari’s unending tale of empty treasury. Obvi­ously, it is no longer news that for umpteenth times, many a Nigerian had urged Mr. President to make public the hand-over notes bequeathed to him by the immediate past government of President Goodluck Jonathan so that the citizenry too could empirical­ly share a good deal with him on this lingering tale of having inher­ited an empty treasury from his predecessor. But all to no avail. Yet, this is an “honest” man and President who wants all and sun­dry to believe that he is not to a very large extent or, worse still, solely responsible for the current economic recession bedeviling the country (?).

2016 Budget Crisis: My Position That Buhari Is Clueless, Incompetent Confirmed- Fayose

*Buhari 

Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayo Fayose has described the raging controversies between the Presidency and the National Assembly over the 2016 Budget as a confirmation of his position that President Buhari was clueless and incompetent, saying: “Nigerians should expect more blunders like this until they send Buhari back to Daura in 2019.” 

The governor, who said it was now obvious that the President and his All Progressives Congress (APC) only wanted power desperately without the wherewithal to govern, added: “I warned Nigerians of the consequences of electing an octogenarian as president and with the international embarrassment that this budget crisis has become, I have been vindicated.”

According to a statement issued on Tuesday by his Special Assistant on Pubic Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, the governor said: “It is obvious that there is total disconnection between the President and his cabinet members as many of the ministers don’t even have access to him probably because the President spend most of his time resting as a result of his old age.”

He said further: “The reality is that the President is challenged by age, exposure and ability. He did not read the budget proposal that he presented to the National Assembly and this should be a lesson for those who clamoured for a Buhari presidency that no man can give what he does not have.

“The question is: can a minister present supplementary budget to the National Assembly and can the National Assembly act on budget proposal submitted by a minister? It is shameful that after blaming former President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for close to one year, the presidency is now blaming the National Assembly for its inability to prepare a common budget.”

President Buhari's Cockroach Ride

       By Remi Oyeyemi

President Muhammadu Buhari, has shown that he enjoys sycophancy. He appears to revel in it. He swims in it. He eats and drinks it. He definitely loves it a lot. The echoes of praise – singers are sonorous in his ears. The cacophony of sycophants translates to rhythm of rhymes in his ears. He adores the way boot-lickers make his shoes shine. The cringing around him seems to make him feel whole. It is a revelry not grounded in reality. And if he continues with this attitude to governance, it is easier to see how he would end up. Any president who is already accepting any form of nomination for a second term towards the end of his first uneventful year in office has to be less serious minded than expected.

*Buhari 

The party leaders who are behind this are not friends of President Buhari. To begin to offer him the ticket of the Party three years out at this point in time is premature, sycophantic and inimical to the country’s progress. It is aimed at bringing the President down and ensuring his failure. But Buhari himself, cocooned in self aggrandizement, inebriated in self importance and intoxicated by egoism could not see the danger of the Greek Gift. His crapulent myopia could not avail him the opportunity to see how such a decision was not in his own best interest.

The implication of this is very huge. It suggests that President Buhari wants to be president just for the sake of it and not for the interest of Nigeria and its yoked people. Since he assumed office about a year ago, everything has been going from bad to worse. He has no single achievement he could point to that he has accomplished. He has filtered away all the goodwill he enjoyed when he assumed office and majority of his reasonable supporters are already scratching their heads if they had not made monumental mistake by electing him to the country’s presidency.

Rather than focus on the challenges of putting Nigeria in order and getting things to work, President Buhari has turned himself to Mr. Gulliver. He has been traveling all over the place. This is not new. What is new is that the public uproar about this has not made any dent. He does not seem to care. Nigerians could make as much noise about what he is doing wrong, he won’t be bothered. He has continued to travel and cost Nigeria hard earned naira. Some estimates have put each travel by the president at around NGN 350 million. It could be more in some cases. For a President who complains about lack of money in the national purse, this does not make any sense.

According to a recent report in the media, the combined worth of Presidential Fleet is $390.5 million (NGN 60.53 billion). This fleet includes two Falcon 7X Jets, two Falcon 900 Jets, a Gulfstream 550, one Boeing 737 BBJ, one Gulfstream IVSP, one Gulfstream V, Cessna Citation 2 Aircraft, and Hawker Siddley 125-800 Jet. The President’s party APC criticized the previous president, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan for profligacy. Refusing to dispose some of these Jets to recuperate some money and put an austere style in place makes the President to look like a hypocrite.