Anniversary Of Truth-Telling Or Propaganda

By Levi Obijiofor

This past weekend has been one of celebrations – celebrations of a government that promised so much but found reasons to explain why it failed to provide for the basic needs of citizens, celebrations of a government that promised to transform our economy, to destroy corruption, to dismantle the Boko Haram insurgency in the North, suppress other ethnic uprisings, create a stable society by enhancing law and order across the country, and to tackle socioeconomic consequences of rising youth unemployment. By the end of the celebrations, Nigerians remain divided on whether the government of Muhammadu Buhari has significantly reduced poverty in the country or whether it has heaped more pain on ordinary citizens.

President Buhari and Information
Minister, Lai Mohammed

This disagreement is not surprising. Before the politicians were elected into office, there was so much hype and mystique built around Buhari, who was presented as the man who would redeem the country and emancipate everyone from 16 years of hardship created by the endemic corruption that manifested in the government of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Here is propaganda number one.

At a book presentation in Abuja  on Thursday, 18 February, 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari claimed that Nigeria “has the fastest growing economy in Africa and one of the fastest in the world.” It is intriguing to see that three months later, after Buhari’s statement was publicised across the world, a senior minister in Buhari’s government admitted publicly that the bad shape of the nation’s economy should not be used as justifiable ground to explain the failure to provide for the needs of the citizens. If that was the case, why did the president and his ministers and special assistants spread the propaganda that Nigeria had the fastest growing economy in Africa and one of the most rapidly growing economies in the world.   So far, it seems some government officials and some leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have been feeding citizens with a diet of misinformation concerning the state of the economy.

President Buhari's Federal Excuses Council (FEC)

By Reno Omokri

On January 22, 2016, I tweeted a joke which went viral. I had said that at meetings of the Federal Executive Council, the minister of information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, would address members and say 'turn to your neighbour and say, neighbour have you blamed Jonathan today'!
Yes, it was a joke, but like most good jokes, it had and still has a basis in reality!

The President and his ministers appear ill prepared for office and the evidence of this is their inability to take responsibility for the situation of things in Nigeria.

*Buhari 

Was it not John Burroughs who said "a man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else"?

Those words should be embossed on a plaque and placed in a very prominent location at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa.

Seeing this admonition weekly may help members of the Federal Executive Council take responsibility and stop acting the victim.

For example, Nigerians were shocked when the minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said in December of 2015 that the Jonathan administration, which had left office six months ago, was responsible for the biting fuel scarcity the nation was and still is grappling with.

That statement by Mr. Lai Mohammed is a classic case of psychological projection (a psychological disorder characterized by a patient defending himself against his own unpleasant realities by denying the existence of the reality while at the same time blaming another for it).

And it gets worse. It is bad enough that this administration refuses to take responsibility for its own failures, it also wants to take credit for the success of others.

In a treatise bothering on megalomania, the publicity and communications team of President Buhari's office claimed the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (AKA TSA) as the major achievement of the first 365 days of the Buhari administration.

But for a government that prides itself on anti-corruption, that statement, fraudulent as it is, is dishonest and 'fantastically corrupt'!

First of all, the Treasury Single Account WAS NOT an idea of the Buhari administration and secondly the present government DID NOT initiate its implementation.

The TSA was conceived by the Jonathan administration and there was to be a staggered implementation because from an expert point of view, it was thought that if all Federal Government funds were suddenly pulled out of the commercial banking sector in one fell swoop, the shock on that sector would be so immense that it would trigger job losses and perhaps bank failures. It was thought that a gradual implementation would allow banks recover such that the baby would not be thrown out with the bath water.

Fuel Price: See What Politics, Hypocrisy Have Caused!

By Onuoha Ukeh

Last week Wednesday, when the Federal Government announced the increase in the price of petrol, from N86. 50 to N145 per litre, I went to a filling station to buy fuel. The time was 11.15pm. On the queue before me was this commercial tricycle operator, who was, surprisingly, excited that he was paying N145 for a litre of petrol he had bought N86. 50 a few hours ago. As he handed his money to the filling station attendant, after being served, he said, with a wry smile on his face: “If they (government officials) like, they should increase the price further. We will continue to buy fuel. Nigerians must survive, whether government likes it or not.”

I saw on the man’s face an obvious scorn for government. Where he was supposed to be angry that a government and a group of politicians, who had made Nigerians to believe that the previous government was clueless, incompetent and unpatriotic, are simply hypocrites, who say one thing and do completely another, he appeared overwhelmed by shock, which has turned to disdain and derision. Like this tricycle operator, most Nigerians would rather mock the government than cry for an action, which would definitely increase their suffering and hardship.   It is a feeling of regret, a feeling that one has when his trust has been betrayed.  It was such a feeling that Julius Caesar had when he was stabbed by Brutus, during the conspiracy that claimed his life. Caesar had exclaimed, when Brutus thrust the dagger into his back: “Et tu Brute?” (Even you, Brutus?).

To be sure, when the hike in the price of fuel was announced last week, most Nigerians felt betrayed. Who would have believed that President Buhari would approve the hiking of fuel price, having opposed this previously? Indeed, Nigerians will not forget January 1, 2012, when the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan announced the removal of subsidy and effected an increase in the pump price of fuel to N141 per litre. When this happened, President Buhari, who was then smarting from defeat in the presidential election of 2011, about seven months earlier, condemned the action. Former Lagos State governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, kicked against it. Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, rejected it. Erudite Pastor Tunde Bakare not only preached against it but also participated in a mass action organised by the Save Nigeria Group he co-convened and other groups. Many members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who were in Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) then, spoke against the increase in fuel price. The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), human rights groups and activists opposed the price hike. Indeed, the groundswell of opposition gave fillip to a street protest, wherein the opposition took over a square in Ojota, Lagos to hold what could pass for “political adoration.” And for days, Lagos and some major cities were grounded. We remember that the President Jonathan administration, face-to-face with imminent crash of government and democracy, buckled and reversed itself, only making a slight increase to N87 per litre.

Are You See What I’M Saw?

By Chuks Iloegbunam 

"Are you see what I’m saw?" Chief Zebrudaya Okoroigwe Nwogbo, alias 4.30, often asked his co-actors this question in the New Masquerade, the soap opera that held millions, especially east of the Niger River, spellbound during the 1970s and 1980s. Each time he put that question, there was something astonishing or peculiar. Often that peculiar or astonishing “something” formed the bedrock upon which a specific offering of the episodic sitcom was developed.

 

*Buhari and Cameron 

In borrowing from Chief Zebrudaya’s lingo, to ask whether or not readers of this column are in awareness of certain things all too obvious to this columnist, the intention is simply to point to confounding and bizarre happenings that are plenteous in the entity today.

A few of these developments deserve a mention, and possible exploration, here. British Prime Minister David Cameron pronounced Nigeria “fantastically corrupt”. A leaked document showed that Minister of Information Lai Mohammed had transgressed the antiseptic integrity of the Change Administration to seek a loan in excess of N13 million from a parastatal under his Ministry, and for an international junket. The government, after months of insistence to the contrary, devalued the Naira. Or did it? The government, after a prolonged stretch of inchoation in the petroleum sector of the economy, inflicted an upward spiral of over a hundred percent in the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) or petrol.

All these happened at such a dizzying speed as to impel the weary and unwary to demand a stoppage of the world so they could hop off. All these happened, predictably, when the Steersman of the Ship of State, was blissfully abroad, attending yet another one of his innumerable conferences across the length and breadth of the globe. All these, predictably again, prompted reactions as numerous as they were conflicting.

It may be easiest to start from an astonishing development, one that incongruously escaped critical examination, despite its underlying ominous implications. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour cornered President Buhari in London, where he was busily attending the anti-corruption summit put together by the one who had cheekily pronounced his country “fantastically corrupt”, and prized from him an interview slightly in excess of six minutes.

As the short interview progressed, Ms Amanpour asked how the Nigerian government was killing corruption in order that corruption doesn’t kill the country. Buhari responded by discussing those he claimed had pocketed billions meant for the fight against terrorism. The interviewer’s follow-up was inevitable: 

Goodbye Nigeria!

By Idowu Ohioze

Recent occurrences, many of which many Nigerians would identify with, have led me to reach an arguably inevitable conclusion: Nigeria is a country on an unarrestable decline.

*President Buhari 

You may or may not share my rather pessimistic opinion depending on your ethnic or political affiliation or religious persuasion since most Nigerians are easily given to assessing public policies and socio-political trends on destructively bias yardsticks namely –and in order of subjective preference - the ethnicity, religious or political origins of the principal protagonists.

My conclusion is the outcome of a deductive reasoning that is based on an analysis of the essentials that impede national progress or are known to have orchestrated the demise of known ancient empires and nation-states.

In the following short essays on a range of issues, I make, hopefully, a string of compelling arguments to support my hypothesis of a disappearing political construct.

The genie is out of the bottle. We just have to figure out how the demise of Nigeria will affect us as individuals

A Killing Field?

If you consider that the emergence of Boko Haram insurgency was sadly the failure of government at each level in Nigeria, you certainly should be alarmed that cattle rearers are wrecking havoc in parts of Nigeria unchallenged by the government.

Confrontations between landowners and heavily armed nomadic cattle rearers have resulted in numerous deaths in Benue, Enugu and other parts of Nigeria but the closest to a government response has been a tepid statement by Lai Mohammed, the federal minister of information.

Rumour of the presence, at the National Assembly, of a draft grazing bill with equally rumoured provisions for statutorily delineated grazing lands within states, has so far been denied by some legislators but the question of Nigerians’ age-long vulnerability within its borders has been brought to the forefront of the debate by the wanton destruction of lives and properties by individuals who are, disturbingly, above the law.

Some state governors have vowed to resist cattle rearers within their territories. In fact, in the south-east, a governor has hinted at resuscitating and re-arming the dreaded Bakassi boys in defence of the citizens of his state against terrorizing cattle herders. As it is commonly the level to which such matters of dire consequences degenerate to in Nigeria, some ethnicists – among them the influential Sultan of Sokoto and Senator Godswill Akpabio – promptly disclaim the erring cattle rearers as Nigerian Fulanis but foreigners from bordering countries.

Buhari, APC Duped Nigerians - Fayose

APC Leaders: Tinubu, Buhari and Oyegun 

Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), duped Nigerians by obtaining their votes by trick, declaring that; “Everything Buhari and his party promised Nigerians when they were looking for votes, they have denied and it won’t be a surprise if one day, Buhari comes out to even deny that he was elected on the platform of APC.”

The governor described Buhari’s declaration that he would not pay the N5, 000 stipend he promised to unemployed youths in the country and Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed’s claim that creation of three million jobs per year was not promised by the APC as the peak of political 419 that the President and his party represent.

He said; “They have not fulfilled any of the promises they made to Nigerians. In fact, they have even told us that they never made any promise. It is close to one year that Buhari assumed office; no single job has been created. Instead of the three million jobs per year that they promised, what we have been witnessing is job losses, economic hardship and budget padding”

Speaking through his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said it was more worrisome that President Buhari always choses foreign lands to make major policy pronouncements, asking whether Buhari has turned himself to Nigeria’s Diaspora or Online President. 

Nigeria: A Government In Denial

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

My daughter’s nanny, Mama Ike, came to work recently with a mischievous smirk on her face. I couldn’t figure out what the matter was but it was apparent she was excited about something. Then, she blurted out.

“Oga,” she quipped, “Is it true that the president had run away?”

 “Which president?” I asked her, flummoxed.

“Our president, (Muhammadu) Buhari,” she riposted matter-of-factly.

“No,” I told her. “It is not true. “He is on a five-day vacation.”

I didn’t convince her as she held tenaciously to her piece of information, literally accusing Buhari of going on AWOL.

“Oga, are you sure? They said the man had run away ooo! In fact, the story in my neighborhood this morning was that the man had run away. Some boys living in our area said they had never seen or heard of this kind of thing before. That the president of a country would run away from office.”

I told her that it was not true but the incredulous look on her puckered face told me without any scintilla of doubt that she was not swayed by my explanation.

Of course, the president did not run away. It is unthinkable that such could happen.

Nigerian Economy: Has Buhari Lost Grip?

By Bola Bolawole 

The advice by Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, that President Muhammadu Buhari summon an emergency meeting on the economy appears on the surface innocuous but deep down, it is fully loaded and ominous.

*Buhari 

On a visit to the Dr. Josef Goebbels of the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Soyinka called for an emergency conference on the economy to which people outside government circles will also be invited, such as consumers, producers, Labour unions, experts on the economy, University egg-heads, among others.

Note Soyinka’s exact words: “I think we really need an emergency economic conference, a rescue operation bringing as many heads as possible together to plot the way forward.” We must also note that the Nobel Laureate, being not just a man of letters but also one with an internationally-acclaimed mastery of the English Language, gingerly and delectably picks his words. He means the words that he uses; no idle or wasteful word is allowed.

So, look at the words he chose to employ in just that sentence: “I think we really need…” meaning that it was a carefully thought-out process that brought out his advice; he was not whimsical about it. He did not just wake up from the wrong side of his bed to begin to rant; the advice was his considered opinion.

How Not to Defend Buhari

By Moses E. Ochonu

There is a roving, seemingly ubiquitous army of Nigerians who have appointed themselves defenders of President Buhari. Unfortunately, by employing offensive and ineffective logics and tactics, these fanatical supporters of the president are doing more reputational harm than good to their hero, and turning away compatriots who would otherwise be willing to give the president a fair hearing on the mounting disappointments with his administration.

*Buhari 

Yesterday, I saw an update on my Facebook timeline with the following words: “if Jonathan had won, the dollar would be exchanging for N1000.” This was apparently advanced to counter the criticism of the naira’s current free fall under the confused monetary policy of this administration.

Where does one begin on this fanatically blind, impulsive defence of Buhari? First of all, that statement begins from a premise of absence, which is a no-no in logic. Jonathan did not win, so we do not and cannot know what would have happened to the naira had he won. That belongs in the realm of known unknowns, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld.

Historians call this counterfactual logic or argument. And, by the way, since when did Jonathan become the baseline of comparison for the author(s) of this Facebook update?

Second, it is a defence that slyly attempts to divert our attention away from the current Forex reality, which is that under Buhari the naira has lost about 40 percent of its value against the dollar in the parallel market. We can debate the extent to which this is the fault of the fiscal and monetary policies of the president, but that is a separate conversation.

Third, the defence is premised on a negative — that is, the fact that the dollar does NOT (yet) exchange for N1000, instead of on the fact that it DOES exchange for N360, which is about N150 more than it exchanged under Jonathan. In this warped reasoning, we should only start complaining about Buhari’s monetary policies when the dollar begins to exchange for more than N1000!

Was Lai Mohammed The Man For The Job?

*Lai Mohammed

By Ochereome Nnanna

In 1996, when the first phase of the Liberian civil war was ending, one of the warlords, Brigadier General Yormie Johnson (who personally killed former dictator, the late President Samuel Doe) wrote a pamphlet where he recorded his random musings about the war and his philosophical attitudes to some issues connected thereto. He titled the book: The Gun That Liberates Should Not Rule.

His argument is that a liberator’s role is to remove the problem and then give way to those who have the capacity to correct it. If the gun that liberates mounts the throne, it will turn the liberator into a dictator. While most of the warlords who drove away Doe from power (such as Charles Taylor) jostled for leadership, Johnson simply came to Lagos to cool his heels, perhaps, his own way of walking his talk. His postulations were later proved right, because Charles Taylor went on to become an even deadlier dictator than Doe and today, answers for his crimes at the Hague.

However, there are those who would fiercely disagree with Johnson’s argument. They would ask: What is the point of putting your hide on the line to drive away the perceived source of a nation’s problems if you cannot pick the courage to show you can do better? The tendency of most people who participate in getting rid of an entrenched ruling class is to entertain the feeling of legitmate entitlement to be part of the government that replaces it. Let’s face it: The 2015 presidential election was historic. The removal of a ruling party from power through the polls rather than through the gun barrel was hitherto seen as an impossibility in our political cosmos. But it happened.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed was the voice of the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), which performed the feat of dethroning the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). You and I know that during elections, the truth is usually forced on a compulsory leave by all contestants. What remain are cleverly dressed-up falshood, hyperboles, false promises, false statistics, angelic characterisation of mere mortals and their dressing up in borrowed robes, diversion of attention from things that matter and the playing up of inanities to fool the gullible voter; in short, PROPAGANDA and its sly accoutrements.

Electricity Crisis And The Illusion Of ‘Body Language’

By Ugochukuwu Ejinkeonye                                                                                
By Wednesday, April 1, 2015 when Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the winner of the March 2015 presidential elections, the rainy season was already here with us. And as all keen and informed observers of Nigeria’s power sector were already fully aware, at that particular season each year, we usually witnessed some improvement in electricity supply due to the increase in the water level usually witnessed at our dams; and 2015 was certainly not going to be an exception.

 

*President Buhari and Lai Mohammed

While the APC and its supporters were all over the place immersed in boundless revelling, chest-beatings and other self-congratulatory gestures, and asking anyone whose ear they were able to attract to await the wonders and miracles which the APC had so freely and loudly promised during the elections now that their “Wonder Man” has won the election, I visited a shop near my office. And there I saw a barely literate young man who was so happy with himself as he confidently told the few people who had some time to spare for his poorly coordinated lectures about what he perceived as Buhari’s pre-inauguration accomplishments:

“You see what I have been saying? The man has not even been sworn in and we are already enjoying light [electricity supply] every day! What will happen then when he is sworn in? Just wait and see! Once he enters there, you will see how everything will change!”

His cocksureness was amazing. He spoke pidgin English, and so what I have attempted here is mere paraphrase of his happy outbursts.

Now, one could easily ignore this clear advertisement of ignorance, but after listening to that fellow that bright afternoon, and thought about the matter later, I begun to have this fear lurking somewhere in me that the APC, given its antecedents and distinguishing character, might soon start reechoing this fellow.  Anyone who closely observed the party during the campaigns and elections would readily recall that, somehow, it does not easily recoil from saying just anything that can help it win a few more ears no matter how easily such claims would simply evaporate in the face of reality.

And so, I had to quickly write an article entitled, “Electricity: Can Buhari Break The Jinx?” in which I attempted an analysis of why, in my view, former President Goodluck Jonathan could not achieve an impressive record in the power sector and urged Buhari and his people to hasten to do the right things to achieve a name for themselves since they had unduly raised the people’s expectations during the campaigns. Then I gave them the timely counsel which is contained in the following extract:

“Now, it is a known fact that during each rainy season, there is usually some improvement in electricity supply as currently being witnessed by Nigerians. But instead of deploying solid effort to increase the amount of electricity generation and distribution in the country, the government may naively choose to sit still and start announcing this development as one of its ‘great achievements.’ That would amount to repeating the folly of previous administrations which had also done that forgetting that the rains would soon go away and they would run out of lies trying to explain away the biting reality that would dawn with the sudden return of darkness.”

Why Lai Mohammed Must Be Fired

By Femi Aribisala

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf was the Minister of Information in the dying days of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. Nicknamed “Comical Ali” by British tabloids, al-Sahaf made a fool of himself during the Iraqi war by constantly fabricating victories of the Iraqi army, even as territory after territory fell to the American-led allied forces.

*President Buhari congratulating Lai Mohammed after he was sworn in as Information Minister 

What was so ridiculous about him was that his lies were so blatant, only fools could believe them.  Even when American tanks rolled into Baghdad, Comical Ali declared: “There is no presence of the American columns in the city of Baghdad at all. We besieged them and we killed most of them. Today, the tide has turned. We are destroying them. The Americans are going to surrender or be burned in their tanks.”

Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, is Nigeria’s home-grown “Comical Ali.”  It would not be unfair to fashion him as “the Minister of FABU.” Barely two months of assuming office, Mohammed has established himself as an instrument of cheap propaganda and disinformation.  On internet blogs today, he is now generally referred to by his traducers as “Liar Mohammed.”  Without a doubt, he has earned this sobriquet by his penchant to be extremely economical with the truth.

Lai Mohammed’s tall tales have now reached epidemic proportions.  It is a contradiction in terms that a government that claims to be anti-corruption, and a president that boasts to be a man of integrity, should have a “Comical Ali” as its face and spokesman.  It is doubtful that Mohammed can stop being himself.  However, if President Buhari is interested in redeeming his now battered image, he needs to admit he made a big error of judgment in appointing Mohammed as a minister.

Lai Mohammed must be fired immediately.  Barring which, the only honourable thing left for the Honourable Minister to do is to resign.  A Minister of Information should not be allowed to become a Minister of Misinformation.

Some Of Buhari’s Assertions Are Patently Dishonest – Femi Fani-Kayode

Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, writes an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari

Mr. President, as one of your most loyal and faithful subjects who has nothing but the utmost respect for your person and your office, I am constrained to write you this open letter. This is because there are a number of issues that I believe that it is important for you to clarify and to come clean on.

I say this because some of your assertions of late are at best contradictory and at worst patently dishonest. Whichever side of the political divide we are on I believe that we can all agree on one thing: that the prosecution of the war against terror is not something that any of us should play politics with. This is especially so given the fact that human lives are at stake and the very existence of our nation is under threat. Like much of the rest of the world our country is going through hell at the hands of the jihadists and Islamist terrorists.

There is no gainsaying that we must all come to terms with the fact that the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL), Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Al Shabab, Boko Haram, Hamas and another group that the internationally-respected Global Terror Index has described as the ''Fulani militants'' (aka Fulani herdsmen) are nothing but bloodthirsty murderers and the lowest form of life.

They are indeed the scum of the earth, the troublers of humanity and the vermin of hell. It is with this in mind that I urge you to take the war against terror far more seriously than you are doing and plead with you to stop passing the buck.

Buhari Has No Answers To Nigeria's Problems – Gov Fayose

Ekiti State governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has called on Nigerians to pray specially for President Mohammadu Buhari; saying; “The President needs God to give him the necessary wisdom to be able to find solution to the country’s economic and security problems.”

*Buhari 

The governor also challenged the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, to relocate to Sambisa in Borno State or Yobe and move around there without heavy military security if indeed he was sure that Boko Haram had been defeated.

Speaking through his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said; “only God’s intervention can save Nigeria from the present economic and security problems as it is glaring that the man running the affairs of the country at the federal level does not have any answer to the problems.”

He said; “Even the Holy Bible said in James 1:5 that if anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask God and as it is, Nigerians must assist the President in asking for wisdom and understanding to tackle the country’s economic and security problems before Nigeria is further plunged into more woes with the federal government’s decision to borrow N2.2 Trillion, which translates to N6.066 billion per day to finance the 2016 Budget.” He described the Federal Government’s announced reduction of petrol pump price from N87 to N85 per litre as a continuation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) government’s governance by deceit, saying; “Even secondary school students of economics know that you cannot deregulate and regulate at the same time.”

Fuel Scarcity: Swallow Your Pride And Accept Responsibility - Ben Murray-Bruce Tells FG

*Senator Ben Murray-Bruce 

As fuel scarcity worsens in Nigeria despite all efforts (including securing an approval from the National Assembly to pay subsidies) by the President Muhammadu Buhari regime to arrest it, Information Minister, Mr. Lai Mohammed, came out to blame the previous administration of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan for the problem. But Senator Ben Murray-Bruce from Bayelsa State thinks that is very ridiculous. He sent out the following tweets...

Lai Mohammed Lied On Fuel Scarcity

By Reno Omokri

 Dear Honourable Minister Lai Mohammed, Greetings and congratulations on your recent and well deserved appointment as Nigeria's Minister of Information. You may recall that we met on the set of 'Politics Today' in May of 2011 soon after I was interviewed by Deji Bademosi and just before you were interviewed.

*Lai Mohammed 

The purpose of my letter to you today is in response to your statement made on Monday the 21st of December, 2015, in which you accused former President Goodluck Jonathan, whom I served as one of three spokesmen, of being responsible for the current excruciating fuel scarcity now subsisting in Nigeria.

Your exact words were "What I will be telling Nigerians is that what we met on ground is such that we are paying for the sins of the last administration...One of the reasons for the fuel scarcity was the inability of the last government to make adequate provision for fuel subsidy".

My candid take on your message to Nigerians is that it is an abdication of responsibility on your part and does not project you and the government you represent as being responsible. Government, as you very well know, is a continuum. One government takes over from where the other stopped and to say that an action in December of 2015 (six months after ex President Jonathan handed over to the incumbent on May 29th, 2015, ) is the fault of the last President, is to confer super human powers on Jonathan.

Now That Body Language Has Failed!

       By Abraham Ogbodo 

LINGUISTS contend languages could die if they fail to expand to accommodate new notations. This was what happened to Latin, which at some point in the history of western education was the language of scholarship. The English language, which has grown to conquer the world was, more or less, vernacular and interjection of Latin in scholarly presentations in England and elsewhere was seen as a mark of erudition.

As a young man, I did not know what had happened to Latin. I thought it was still alive and kicking and I had wished for it to replace French in my first year in the University when the latter was a compulsory elective course for Theatre Arts students. It was my first classroom contact with the French language where everything is either masculine – le or feminine – la, and the learner does not have a clear guide as to who or what is a man or a woman. When I told my French lecturer one day that I would prefer Latin to French, she laughed and replied in French: “ Latin est mort!”

Permit the long digression. I was only trying to establish that language, including body language can die if not properly nourished. Everybody was happy when the Buhari Body Language was introduced into the curriculum of the political economy on May 29, 2015. It was linguistically efficient and people understood it without interpretation. Importers of fuel understood it and began immediately to conduct the business of fuel importation and distribution to sales outlets in the new language. It was understood, for instance, that fuel could flow ceaselessly at N87 per litre with or without payment of subsidy. The long queues at filling stations vanished overnight and there was jubilation in the land and in the camp of the APC, which promptly appropriated the turn-around as part the change it promised Nigerians.

In fact, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who until recently was publicity secretary of the APC said nothing was more evident of the change than this strange situation when the president could get things done without expending effort and scarce resources. He named the new approach that ensured performance without corresponding investment, Body Language. He said it was working far better than anything previously known.

Taraba: PDP Is Paying The Price Of Impunity - APC

Press Statement

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said Saturday's judgement of the Taraba State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal is the clearest indication yet that the PDP has started harvesting what it sowed in its years of impunity and recklessness, hence it should blame itself for whatever tragedy has now befallen it...

*Hajia Aisha Jummai Alhassan

In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the PDP has always been a party of anything goes, hence it is a matter of time for the party to come to grief, first by tumbling from the pinnacle of power and now by losing, incrementally, whatever remains of its crumbled empire.

It said the PDP was only trifling by attributing the judgement to a supposed manipulation from the Presidency.

''President Muhammadu Buhari as well as his party, the APC, are strong believers in the rule of law, as against the rule of impunity, hence will never manipulate the judiciary for whatever reason.

''The PDP is clearly aware of this, but has chosen to blame everyone but itself for the fate that has befallen it. The PDP should have known that it will pay for its years of impunity and recklessness. For this party, the chicken has now come home to roost,'' APC said.

PDP Needs Rebranding – APC

PRESS RELEASE 

The All Progressives Congress (APC) said the resort to crude, personal attacks by PDP spokesman Olisa Metuh‎ in his latest statement is a clear vindication of the party's (APC's) stand that the PDP should urgently rebrand or go into extinction. 

*Lai Mohammed 
In a statement issued in Lagos on Saturday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said with a combustible and out-of-control spokesman like Metuh, there is no way the PDP will survive in opposition.

''Metuh has shown, time and again, that he lacks the temperament, presence of mind, sobriety, analytical mind, decency in the use of language and panache needed for anyone to be the face of any organisation, not to talk of a political party. 

''It was the realization of this obvious fact that ‎made us to offer to provide the excitable Metuh a crash course on how to function as an opposition spokesman. Unfortunately, it is too late now as he seems to have become totally untrainable. 

''Instead of reacting to our sincere advice to his party to urgently rebrand or go down, Metuh chose to unleash his vitriolic tongue on the APC spokesman, just as he has done to the judiciary and many agencies of government in recent times. 

''In what is surely a looming tragedy for the PDP, a spokesman who helped write the party into opposition is now poised to further write it into extinction,'' ‎it said.

APC insisted that the PDP should stop wailing and insulting the judiciary for the electoral tragedy‎ which it brought upon itself by engaging in mindless rigging and violence in the last general elections. 

''The doomed opposition should also immediately stop its failed strategy of trying to distract the Buhari Administration, which is busy cleaning up the mess left behind by the 16 years of locust of the sinking 'PDP,'' the party said

Alhaji Lai Mohammed
National Publicity Secretary
All Progressives Congress (APC)
Lagos, Oct. 31st 2015.