Trump’s Victory, The True Colour Of Democracy

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

On Wednesday, November 6, Donald Trump, the 45th U.S. President, pulled off what, to all intents and purposes, is an extraordinary political comeback – an exceptional feat that has catapulted him once again to the enviable position of the president-in-waiting. On January 20, 2025, he will take another oath of office as the 47th U.S. President.

When Americans went to the polls on Tuesday, November 5, to elect President Joe Biden’s successor, the odds weighed against Trump. Here is a president who was impeached twice during his presidency, refused to accept electoral defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol before vacating the White House and was subsequently convicted of felony charges.

Fears For Our Children’s Future

 By Ayo Oyoze Baje

The most immediate source of disconnect between Nigeria’s wealth and poverty is a failure of government at the federal, state and local levels” – Hillary Clinton (2009) 

The poem titled, ‘Our Children’s Anthem’, was written by yours truly and published by the Nigerian Herald back in 1988, sincere concern was raised over the quality of life of the upcoming generations of Nigerians, if the political leadership did not get it right, as a t that time. 

Aisha Buhari: From Wife Of The President To First Lady

 By Rotimi Fasan

I can’t be sure now how Aisha Buhari prefers to be identified. Is it as the First Lady or as the President’s wife? At present, she’s more often identified as the First Lady than as the wife of the president, which was the Muhammadu Buhari presidency’s own way of distancing itself from the abuse and overbearing tendencies of previous occupants of the “office” of First Lady.

*Aisha Buhari 

But things seem to have unravelled, and the hairsplitting is being or has been exposed for what it is – a mere academic exercise. With no constitutional provision, many Nigerians have in the past questioned the manner in which some so-called first ladies had gone about their duty, which was often characterised by misuse of public funds and resources. 

Aisha Buhari: Our First Lady Deserves Respect

By Dan Amor

To be candid, I have never met Dr. (Mrs.) Aisha Buhari, wife of the Nigerian ruler, President Muhammadu Buhari, neither am I one of her fans. But I detest all cynical attitudes toward her based on social pretensions. I'm highly contemptuous of any attempt to put a family seal unto a divine arrangement whose antecedent can be traced to God Himself.

*Aisha Buhari 

It is patently absurd for grown up men who are supposed to be responsible family heads in their own right to be harassing another man's wife in her husband's official home more so when the husband is the president of an independent country. The reported fracas in Aso Rock Presidential Villa penultimate week, which culminated in sporadic gun shots and arrest and detention of the aide de camp (ADC) to the President's wife, is scary and condemnable, to say the least.

It is also unfortunate that some Nigerians could open their mouth so wide to condemn the First Lady for trying to protect her nuclear family from dangerous interlopers who are threatening not only to manipulate the President but also to usurp the rights of his wife to gain access to her husband.

Save Our Women!

By Simon Abah

This hustler brought his fiancée to the United States from Nigeria. He didn’t have the necessary papers to be in the US, he did menial jobs but through hard work he was able to save money and sent her to a nursing school, she got a job as soon as she graduated, and legalized her stay. 

(pix: africa.com)

The job as a nurse in the US put her on a pedestal higher than him and life was so good, so it seemed. She earned income higher than his shifting income and they settled down to raise six children, of course for the passport as a meal ticket for tomorrow. Then the fizz burst, they had a major disagreement, madam nurse forgot the days in Nigeria before she came to America and that the hustler even brought her there. 

That Unprofitable Ministerial Screening In Nigeria!

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Working as a political appointee in Nigeria is, perhaps, merely an exercise in extreme perfunctoriness. I doubt if those who accept these offices, those who offer them and those who “screen” and confirm the appointees, are driven by any vision at all, any objective to achieve for the progress of the country.

What is very clear is that whereas work for these officers is largely undertaken desultorily (with little or no intention to achieve any significant outcome), what appears to drive most of them is the opportunity to arrange or negotiate what might enter their private pockets from the public purse. It is at the point when there are funds to loot that one would be startled to discover that the Nigerian public office holder is, indeed, capable of being very zealous, thorough and focused, that he can conscientiously pursue a set goal and achieve it with amazing aplomb and precision.

President Buhari And The Arrogance Of Power

By Anthony Igiehon

Ahead of the 58th quadrennial United States presidential election on November 8, 2016, the world watched with bated breath as the two major candidates in the election, Republican Candidate Donald Trump and Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton went head to head at three separate debates held at New York’s Hofstra University (September 26, 2016), Washington University in St. Louis (October 9, 2016), and University of Nevada, Las Vegas (October 19, 2016).

*President Buhari 

For the two candidates who met the Commission on Presidential Debates’ criteria for participation, the debates provided a much-needed platform to present to the American voting public their plans or reform proposals on a number of foreign and domestic issues.

Battle Of The Sexes Proxy For Sexual Abuse

By Farouk Martins Aresa

Professor Blassey Ford is not Hauwa Liman an African woman the last time we checked but she carried all the stigma of Boko Haram girls that were sexually abused or killed. She predicted the pain and psychological trauma she would go through if she ever came forward. Nevertheless, she never predicted the threat to her life! Even worse is the fact that nothing would happen or change because her harasser would be believed over her.

In terms of equality between men and women, we might as well look towards Western Europe and Canada since Africans cannot count on the story and safety of American women. However, African women are pulling their weight everywhere. Many of them are just as highly educated as men but the opportunity to move to the highest level still comes through politics. This is the place where most women are missing in Africa.

Roadblocks Against Women

By Ray Ekpu

Since Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka became the first elected leader, women have come to the realisation that it is possible for them to break the male dominance in the high leadership sector.

*Former Liberian President Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf

Women such as Golda Meir of Israel, Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May of Britain, Angela Merkel of Germany, Ameenah Guib-Fakini of Mauritius and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, to mention but a few have risen to the pinnacle of political power in their countries. The number still remains negligible because women have had formidable roadblocks placed on their path to the top by men and society generally.

Nigeria: The Decline Of Female Politicians

By Paul Onomuakpokpo
Through their numerous feats in different spheres of human endeavour, many a woman has vitiated the wrongheaded diatribe of the iconoclastic German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that “when a woman has scholarly inclinations there is something wrong with her sexuality.”

Clearly, women could justifiably declaim against Nietzsche’s notion of woman as God’s second mistake. But it is not unlikely that Nietzsche’s opinion would have enjoyed a fair measure of validity if he had had the Nigerian woman in mind and declared that she suffers an unhinged sexuality as long as she has political inclinations. Nietzsche’s postulation could even be much more valid in a place like Saudi Arabia where women only secured the right to vote in just about three years ago.

When Will Buhari Be Considered Incapacitated?

By Asikason Jonathan 

At the homestretch of the 2015 presidential election, the Goodluck Jonathan’s reelection campaign team challenged the then candidate Muhammadu Buhari on a sport contest. When the gauntlet was left unpicked, the team in a follow up, set the internet abuzz with the juxtaposition of the pictures of President Jonathan and members of his Federal Executive Council jogging and that of not-too-good- looking candidate Buhari.

*Buhari 

The challenge which came on the heels of simmering conjectures on the health condition of candidate Buhari was aimed at passing one message which is: President Jonathan is healthier than candidate Buhari to carry out the duties of the office of president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

But was “health” given a premium in the election? The vuvuzelas of the opposition party was so fortissimo that not even the yawping of Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State could be heard. They rally-cried “Nigeria sai changi” and people responded with “Sai Buhari” and thus turned a blind eye to the critical issues in the election.

 That health is of premium in the electability of a candidate leaves no room for argument. All public office –let alone the office of president– demands people who are sound both in body and in mind so that efficiency and proficiency will be brought to fruition in the exercise of the duties of the office.

I Stand With Apostle Johnson Suleman

By Clem Aguiyi

Apostle Johnson Suleman of the Omega Fire Ministry is no stranger to controversy. He’s not a saint and didn’t ask to be canonized one, but the Apostle Suleman that I know is a man who love Christ. He toils hard in the Lord’s vineyard, labouring day after day to win souls for Christ.

*Suleman 

He does not just love Christ but ready to die for the Gospel. When he, Apostle Suleman spoke fearlessly on the rights of Christians to bear arms if need be to defend themselves from physical attacks by Islamists, I was agitated as I wondered what would happen to him for speaking out: Will they ignore him? Attack him? Smear him? Frame him up or bring physical harm upon him?

I was therefore, not shocked when little known Canadian stripper, Stephanie Otobo started regaling us with her infamous sexcapades with the media not asking critical questions despite the gaps in the tales.

Having reviewed her sorry tales, I reached the conclusion that she is acting out a familiar script. You need not look further to draw a nexus between Stephanie, her lawyers, Suleman’s foes, their political affiliation and their penchant for image savaging to reach same conclusion. For starters, Apostle Suleman is being accused of sleeping with Stephanie.

Recall for emphasis that on January 28, 2013, Mallam El-Rufai tweeted that “if Jesus criticizes Jonathan’s government, Maku, Abati or Okupe will say that He slept with Mary Magdalene.”

Former President Jonathan Writes New US President, Donald Trump

Dear Donald J. Trump,  

By the grace of God, President of the United States of America. 

As the United States of America opens a new chapter today, many around the world, myself inclusive, are optimistic that the success you have achieved in your career as one of the world's foremost entrepreneurs will be translated to your life as a public servant and custodian of the trust of the American people.

For over four decades, you have consistently created wealth and opportunities for yourself, your family, your country and its citizens.

The city of New York, host to the United Nations Headquarters, thus the world's most prominent city, bears the hallmark of your signature through your real estate developments.

You have also left your footprints in politics, media, education, sports, entertainment and the arts.

From this backdrop, I am very hopeful that the United States of America and indeed the rest of the world will be witnessing great, worthy and positive frontiers under the Trump Presidency.

I congratulate you, the 45th President of the United States, as you begin your tenure today. I pray that God will bless your tenure and enable you actualize your vision and commitment to building a better and more secured America and the world.

 

*Dr. Goodluck Jonathan

Let me seize this opportunity to express my hope and desire that your administration will work with Africa to help her people realize their achievable great future and harness the God given potential domiciled in the land and people of Africa from Cairo to Cape Town.

May God bless the United States of America.

May God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria and may God bless the world.

Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan GCFR

Chairman of the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation.

Soyinka And The Shredding Of His Green Card

By Charles Onunaiju
“Our common sense is totally lost. I am embarrassed sometimes that I occupy the same nation space with some people… what is the right of any Nigerian to challenge me on my decision? Barbarians have taken over, the country using the anonymity of the internet”.
– Prof. Wole Soyinka

*Soyinka

But didn’t an erudite professor, renowned scholar, iconic playwright and social critic, who publicly threatened to destroy his document, however way it was over the outcome of a distant periodic election he did not even vote in and for which his interest is at best marginal, brutally assault common sense, that the rest of us should be embarrassed to share the same nation space with him?

Since Professor Wole Soyinka interjected prior to the anger-driven US presidential election with a threat to shred his own green card in the event of an election victory of the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, he has set off a frenzy of activities on the social media. That such a towering figure as Soyinka who is familiar with real theatre could set off such theatrics as he did with a threat to tear his green card over an election outcome and expect nothing less that the frenzy that trailed it, is very strange indeed. He did not utter philosophy for which he should expect measured and rational response. In my part of the country, we say that when you bring home an ant infested wood, you have only invited lizards to feast. 

It is only natural and a matter of common sense that Nigerians are entitled to know how the distinguished professor has fared in his public threat to shred his card, after Donald Trump, the Republican candidate secured the requisite electoral college votes(more than 270) to win the U.S Presidential election. The anger and name calling that the professor has deployed to intimidate his interlocutors does not answer the question of his categorical statement to shred his green card in the event of Trump’s win.

If the professor had been led to believe the establishment media and polls projections of a victory for the Democratic Party candidate, Hillary Clinton, into the volatile gamble, there is actually no big deal in a humble climbdown. Afterall, the assorted community of media and poll watchers, who predicted that Trump would be dumped in electoral humiliation, have since moved on, inventing fresh reasons for their dull binoculars that did not see more accurately the election permutations.

Trump’s meteoric rise and consequent stunning victory is not so much about him but represents a considerably prevailing social sentiment in the US, to which he masterfully aggregated and articulated. The American traditional political elite or the Washington establishment has projected power in a way, in which the country has over-reached itself and also, the brutal effects of the financialization of capitalism has taken huge toll on the working people, even as the traditional safety net has imploded. 

At Last, Soyinka Discards His American 'Green Card'

Eminent Nigerian writer and Noble Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, who had vowed that if Mr. Donald Trump won the US presidential election that he would shred his 'green card' has fulfilled his promise. 

Soyinka told the AFP at a conference at the University of Johannesburg: "I have already done it, I have disengaged from the United States. I have done what I said I would do... I had a horror of what is to come with Trump ... I threw away the [green] card, and I relocated, and I'm back to where I have always been." 

He said, however, that he was not against any other Nigerian seeking to obtain the 'green card.' "It's useful in many ways. I wouldn't for one single moment discourage any Nigerians or anybody from acquiring a green card... but I have had enough of it," Soyinka said.

Judgment Day Comes For Homosexuals

By Tony Iwuoma

I have never hidden my distaste for homosexuals and lesbians. That God prescribes death sentence for this scurrilous conduct highlights how revolting and abominable it is. If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)

However, in this libertine age of misconstrued grace, society has been overly tolerant of the evil. Even in the 17th century, New England and some American colonies adopted this biblical recommendation of death for homosexuals until 1786, after the Revolution, when man rebelled against God, with Pennsylvania in the lead by dropping the death penalty. Of more recent is the June 26, 2003 US Supreme Court ruling in the Lawrence versus Texas suit that annulled the Texas same sex sodomy law on the grounds that sex was covered by the liberty rights of the US constitution. Ever since, morality has taken a steep decline, even in traditional African societies and the church.

In a recent post, a young undergraduate of the University of Port Harcourt met a homosexual on the social media. He was sent N20, 000 to come to Lagos for sexual tryst. After the romp, somewhere in Ifako area, he was paid N150, 000. To his utter shock and amazement, soon after, he started developing multiple organs – five full-blown penises (the picture too repulsing to publish here). By this time though, his homosexual partner had vanished into thin air, leaving the young man in quandary.

Much as one is not rejoicing over this avoidable tragedy, it is timely warning for similarly inclined men and women to make a detour from the ignoble path of perdition lest greater calamity befalls them. The same message goes to the fallen Miss Anambra, whose disgusting video of sex act, using cucumber of all things was trending in social media and all same sex inclined perverts.

God still loves them though, both homosexuals and lesbians. But He hates their despicable conduct and unless they repent, they will surely perish. They may hide from man but not from God.  It is obvious that God seems to have taken up the task of enforcing His own laws, which no man can annul.

Donald Trump is the man of the moment for whom the impossible has happened. The much-hyped presidential election in the United States climaxed last Tuesday, posting a most unexpected result. The candidate of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, a billionaire business mogul, trounced the candidate of the Democratic Party, Hilary Clinton, former first lady, former senator, former secretary of state, and former this and that.

Trump was trailed by many controversies all the way from the primaries, including tax evasion and philandering with different women, some of whom openly accused him of groping them. But he braced all of the odds stoically and weathered the storm alone, even when leading lights in his party abandoned him. Trump was a one-man riot squad, who could even be described as an independent candidate though he contested on the Republican Party’s platform.

Aisha Buhari: New Face Of The Opposition?

By Steve Nwosu

First Lady, Aisha Buhari, is definitely working for the PDP.
And we can now officially enthrone her as the matriarch of the Wailers. Now, don’t ask me if she has ‘officially’ joined the PDP yet. But to underscore the fact that Hajia Aisha is currently being tempted to publicly tear her APC membership card (OBJ on my mind), President Muhammadu Buhari told a press conference in Germany last week that “I don’t know the party my wife belongs to”.

*Aisha Buhari 

So, officially, husband and wife are no longer in the same political party. My only problem for now is that I don’t know whether she belongs to the Makarfi/Wike faction or the Modu Sherrif faction. I also don’t know how much the umbrella people paid her to do what she’s doing.

Yes, if I or any other journalist or political commentator had said what Mrs. Buhari told BBC Hausa Service about Buhari and his government, I suspect the DSS, Police or EFCC would since have come calling. Yes, they might not resort to pulling down our doors or sneaking up on us like any gang of armed robbers and kidnappers would but bank accounts might have been frozen by now. And Lai Mohammed would be on air, talking about how we had been contracted and generously paid, by the PDP, to discredit Buhari’s government.

I think Aisha is coming from our rich and long production line of strong women in the corridors of power and leadership. Soft exterior, steely interior!

In Nigeria, we are not new to presidencies where the women wear the trousers and have the balls (if you’ll indulge me that expression).
Those who were close to the Goodluck Jonathan’s would swear that it was Mama Peace that had the balls. I was not close to the Umaru Yar’Aduas, but I’ve heard stories about Hajia Turai. President Olusegun Obasanjo may have been as stubborn as a he-goat, but people close to the then first family attest that his beautiful wife, Stella, was one woman OBJ could not put down.

I don’t know how the military leaders coped with their own wives, but legend has it that IBB stood no chance of ever making it to Maryam’s bedroom again if he had insisted, with the then Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC), that Asaba should not be the capital of the then about-to-be-created Delta State.

Who Governs Nigeria?

By Reuben Abati

During the Jonathan administration, an outspoken opposition spokesperson had argued that Nigeria was on auto-pilot, a phrase that was gleefully even if ignorantly echoed by an excitable opposition crowd. Deeper reflection should have made it clear even to the unthinking that there is no way any country can ever be on auto-pilot, for there are many levels of governance, all working together and cross-influencing each other to determine the structure of inputs and outcomes in society. To say that a country is on auto-pilot is to assume wrongly that the only centre of governance that exists is the official corridor, whereas governance is far more complex. The question should be asked, now as then: who is governing Nigeria? Who is running the country? Why do we blame government alone for our woes, whereas we share a collective responsibility, and some of the worst violators of the public space are not even in public office?

*Buhari and Jonathan 

The President of the country is easily the target of every criticism. This is perhaps understandable to the extent that what we have in Nigeria is the perfect equivalent of an Imperial Presidency. Whoever is President of Nigeria wields the powers of life and death, depending on how he uses those enormous powers attached to his office by the Constitution, convention and expectations. Nigeria’s President not only governs, he rules. The kind of President that emerges at any particular time can determine the fortunes of the country. It helps if the President is driven by a commitment to make a difference, but the challenge is that every President invariably becomes a prisoner.

He has the loneliest job in the land, because he is soon taken hostage by officials and various interests, struggling to exercise aspects of Presidential power vicariously. And these officials do it right to the minutest detail: they are the ones who tell the President that he is best thing ever since the invention of toothpaste. They are the ones who will convince him as to every little detail of governance: who to meet, where to travel to, and who to suspect or suspend. The President exercises power, the officials and the partisans in the corridors exercise influence. But when things go wrong, it is the President that gets the blame. He is reminded that the buck stops at his desk.

We should begin to worry about these dangerous officials in the system, particularly within the public service, the reckless mind readers who exploit the system for their own ends, and who walk free when the President gets all the blame. To govern properly, every government not only needs a good man at the top, but good officials who will serve the country. We are not there yet. The same civil servants who superintended over the omissions of the past 16 years are the ones still going up and down today, and it is why something has changed but nothing has changed. The reality is terrifying.

Donald Trump: Real Threat To Global Peace

By Percy Okae

All over the airwaves currently it is Donald Trump making the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Every now and again he makes one controversial statement after the other as to what he would do if he were to become America’s next leader. Foremost among his intentions is the policy he would immediately implement to deny prospective immigrants to America as well as so-called illegal immigrants he would want to ship back to their respective original home countries.

*Donald Trump 

What Mr. Trump forgets is that he is also indirectly an immigrant in America because that country is strictly a land of immigrants of which those of German descent are in the majority. Mr. Trump should know that his ancestors also immigrated to the then New World from Europe and so he is also strictly not a native of that landmass. The actual owners of America are the native Indians who as I speak are almost extinct following their deliberate extermination by the white Europeans when they arrive in the New World.

Today as we speak, the quadrennial ritual of selecting America’s next President is ongoing and as always, it has generated a lot of heat and already some candidates have fallen along the line. Foremost among such victims is John Edward Bush ((Jeb) Bush), a candidate who happens to be of the political establishment class and thus suffered as a consequence. However, given the happenings in the primaries of the Grand Old Party (GOP) — the Republican Party—the foremost heirloom by Honest Abe to his fellow Americans, it is very likely that another candidate of the political establishment, Hilary Rodham Clinton, a Democrat, will likely become America’s 45^th President come next January, even though most Americans would not have wanted it so.

This is because the broader masses of Americans cannot fathom why those voting in the primaries of the GOP keep giving the baton to the vainglorious Donald Trump in almost all the state primaries, who though an astute business magnate of the global exclusive club of billionaires, has scored zeroes through his foul-mouthing this far. Every act of this man so far on the campaign trail, who looks lost to the realities of our present World, has been RACIST at best and utter DISDAIN for other demographics or persuasions at worst. Barring a miracle, his selection as the presumptive nominee of the GOP for the 2016 presidential elections is almost a done deal.

However, in case that happens, the majority of America’s non-party affiliated citizens will surely hand the presidency to Mrs. Clinton, in case she also becomes the Democratic nominee. And if that happens, the World will be spared the emergence of a certain incendiary of a Mr. President and the Commander-in-Chief of the World’s most resourced military and most likely, yet another unjustifiable invasion of another sovereign country on a non-existent excuse.

*P. OKAE
ADENTAN-ACCRA

Can Trump Beat Clinton?

*Donald Trump, Hillary and Bill Clinton (pix:abc)

After all of the ink and pixels spilled on 2016 election coverage, Super Tuesday confirmed what the polls have been telling us for months: We are headed for a clash of the titans between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. 

And if the numbers hold true again, it appears Trump will have an uphill, though not insurmountable, climb to best Clinton, and there’s a chance he could wind up one of the biggest losers in presidential history. Or become President Trump. 

Nobody thought he could win the Republican nomination either, and he might just be getting warmed up. 

“I haven’t even started with her,” the mogul said of Clinton in the last GOP debate. So what might it look like when he does and the Trump-branded wrecking ball hits the Democratic Party establishment? 
CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE